Mmmm that is a poor excuse!
Here is a bit of trivia!
According to the CAA website there was 167 licence renewals in the period 2004-2005. 150 were for professional licences and 17 were for PPLs.
Using the information on the scheme of charges the grand total 'earned' by the CAA was around £32,500. If each licence renewal took 30 mins admin time then that would take up around 2 working weeks of someone's office time, processing all these renewals!
As the number of JAR PPLs starts to get into serious numbers then the income for the CAA will increase and the manpower required will be increased as well.
The CAA have tried to make GA more accessible with the introduction of the NPPL which is a positive step. However I sometimes wonder if the CAA have lost the plot when Private flying is in fact done for pleasure and fun. A lot of PPLs learn to fly and leave the licence to gather dust and may not use it for some time or ever again. Seeing a expiry date in their licence and the thought of dealing with the CAA may well be one factor that persuades them to leave the licence to gather more dust and in the end don't get flying again.
That is a sad state of affairs!
Last edited by Mister Geezer; 23rd February 2006 at 22:38.