PPL Instructors are back!!
Flight Training News: learn to fly, flying schools, PPL, CPL, ATPL ...
The news comes at a time when the UK is experiencing an unprecedented shortage of flight instructors, through a combination of ‘poaching’ of instructors by airlines desperate for pilots and through the high cost involved of becoming instructor rated due to the CPL requirement, which has resulted in fewer pilots training to become career instructors since the requirement was instigated in the late 1980s.
FTN has spoken with Peter Moxham, senior member of the British Business & General Aviation Association, who sits on many of EASA committees and working groups. Peter was able to confirm that EASA have agreed to the removal of the CPL requirement for all PPL instructors, paid or otherwise. EASA has been able to achieve this by filing a ‘differences’ claim with EU Parliament. As the CPL requirement is an ICAO regulation, not an EASA one, this was the only route open to Europe to achieve the removal of the CPL requirement. It should be noted however, that the removal of professional licence requirement for instructors only applies to those individuals who wish to teach private pilots. Instructors teaching students for professional licences will still be required to hold at least a CPL themselves. The general rule – which is in fact an EU Parliament regulation – is that in order to teach a licence you must be a holder of that licence yourself.
The NPA is due to be published over the next couple of months and will be available to view on EASA’s website Comments on the proposed changes are sought from affected parties and can be made via EASA’s online Comments Response Tool, or via European GA representative bodies such as European Air Sports.