EasyJet to transfer 1400 pilots licence from UK to Austria as a precaution to brexit
 

So the chaos has started.
A prominent UK AME told me with regards to UK medicals that there would be EU approval for some of them, if it looks like a Crash Out!
If I understand him right!
For anyone with a UK medical and EU licence I would strongly recommend dobbelchecking ASAP.

This could get crowded and ugly for some.
Lets hope not!

regards
Cpt B

Would their Austrian licences be valid in the UK?

In a no deal scenario most likely not. If you mean that someone with an EU license could fly a G-registered plane. However, of course it would be possible to continue to fly on planes registered in the EASA states. It just would be the same as flying to any other third country out of the EU, depending on individual traffic rights of course, but that is more an operators problem than a crew one.

Well, no.

At the moment the UK is still in EASA and a pilot can hold only one EASA license. UK national licenses (at least for those regulated by EASA) can not exist until the UK leaves the EASA/EU. Once left, the pilots are ICAO licensed in a third country and would have to do the same stuff every third country pilot has to do, which is write the 14 exams and prove their practical experience. Which could include simulator checks for each type they want to have on that license. As usual, that is for a no deal scenario.

In reality, we all know that's not going to happen. There is no prospect that flights between the UK and other countries will cease on March 30 2019.

This is getting stupid. I hold an Australian ATPL and a JAA ATPL and a UAE ATPL.

I could ( now retired thank God)..happily fly to any EU country I wanted to. What will stop a pilot with a UK licence fling into Europe?? it was done without too much trouble before there was an EU. ( And I lived in Europe for 17 years so I have an interest)

We had 70 years of CAA/ARB experience and an organisational structure to handle self regulation. We don't have that capability at the moment as it is all done by EASA. Whether or not the UK CAA can entice experienced people to leave EASA and help run the CAA again remains to be seen, but if they don't start manning up soon it will be a problem. Not just for pilots, Engineers and ATCOs will be in the same boat. As will everything else the CAA used to do.

Well, that is what most hope. But you cannot plan on hope, which is why easyJet apparently works on splitting the big half of its operation in another two parts, making the company basically three separate entities. The already existing part is of course easyJet Switzerland which is already separated from the rest although switzerland is actually an EASA member, but not inside the EU.

Why would UK not be a member of EASA after Brexit? For example, Iceland and Norway are, and they are not members of EU. And almost forgot, Switzerland, too.

All of them are part of European Economic Area (EEA), which means they allow free movement of EEA nationals and respect decisions of ECJ, all of which seems to be a big no-no for the current UK government.

Iceland and Norway are EEA members, Switzerland is not but has an elaborate set of agreements with the EU. What they have in common is that THEY ALL ACCEPT THE SUPREMACY OF THE ECJ IN MATTERS OF INTERPRETING EU AND EASA LAWS AND REGULATIONS. One of the UK Governments red lines is that they REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE SUPREMACY OF THE ECJ. Unless they make a significant climbdown, accept that the ECJ is the highest authority in deciding how EASA rules are to be interpreted AND get the EU to agree to have the UK in EASA but not part of the common (aviation) market: only then will your UK-issued licence still be valid to fly EASA-registered aircraft.

P.S. FS beat me to it ;o)

Be interesting to see what EASA budget looks like without UK payments. Interesting times

The cost of EASA will increase slightly for the 27 remaining members, which will be no reason for them to quit the EU or EASA. The common view in the UK seems to be that the EU will somehow cease to function without it. Challenging? Yes. Up until now the EU 27 are remarkably unified in their postion towards Brexit, though...

And to see what UK CAA budget looks like without payments for all those Easyjet hulls and crew. Expect a sharp rise in fees for those left in the UK.

Is it not going to be ever so simple, again, like in the old days ? My UK licence authorised me to fly UK registered aircraft, anywhere in the world. Forget all this JAA , EASA , nonsense. If I wanted to get a job in the USA,I would need a FAA licence to fly N registered aircraft. I , one time , obtained a one-off FAA validation for ferry work or delivery but that was it. Want the licence ? Do the full ground-school and all the exams. We did the same to all others. Want the Uk Licence ? Do all the groundschool & writtens.

When Air Europe went to the wall, we were training the Italian division. But to fly UK registered aircraft, (AE-UK) the AE-Italians had to do all the writtens. Mamamia, poor devils ! They were a lot kinder to us when a select few were given jobs in AE Italy after the AE-Uk demise. We just had to do Air Law but that was nodded & winked away. Quickly, we were flying Italian Registered aircraft on UK licences with Italian Validation. My prized Uk licence was validated for Belgian registered aircraft for a Belgian job. Belgian ATPL given with no requirement for exams. In Holland, Dutch law was required. Transavia gave us a one week course, Dutch Law exam ( I failed and an Oral was required...but that's another story....), passed & given a Dutch validation to fly Dutch registered aircraft all over the world. Finally, Oman just looked at my admired Uk licences and I was quickly ( we all were) given Oman ATPL to fly Oman Registered aircraft, all over the world. That was GulfAir. When the Bahrainis introduced their own CAA and Bahrain registered aircraft, Bahrain ATPL was awarded on verification of the Oman Licence. There was never a validation on the UK Licence but an issue of the local licence on presentation of the Uk one. See how easy it is and has nothing to do with geographical airspace..

Post Brixit,let's just get on with a UK CAA/ARB and fly UK registered aircraft anywhere in the world. It really is that simple. Should you want to fly foreign registered aircraft, you would need the issue of that Country's licence either by validation of the Uk licence or whatever they require.

Oh just remembered, AE casualties who secured employment in Japan had to do the full Jap ATPL. Those who went to Condor, equally, full German ATP. Blimey, made mu Dutch Oral quite a pleasant experience !

Perhaps the fact that there are currently no "UK licences", only UK-issued EASA licences...

The CAA's planning assumptions for a "non-negotiated EU exit" are here: https://www.caa.co.uk/our-work/about-us/eu-exit/ and include:

- There is no mutual recognition agreement between the EU and the UK for aviation licences, approvals and certificates.
- UK issued licences and approvals (issued when the UK was an EASA member) will continue to have validity under UK law but will no longer be recognised by EASA for use on EASA Member State-registered aircraft.

Of course there may still be a negotiated exit deal, despite current efforts by a bunch of politicians to force a "No Deal" exit.

There are. I have two licences issued by the CAA. One says 'European Union Flight Crew Licence on the header page, the other says 'United Kingdom Airline Transport Pilot's Licence''. When I converted my JAR ATPL into an EASA ATPL, I ticked the box asking if I wanted a UK Licence issued at the same time. It cost nothing extra.

Let's say I am an American Airline pilot based in Dallas. My U.S. ATP is valid for me to fly to any AAL station in the world (and authorized alternate), provided I have the requisite training from AAL.

Why should this situation be different?

It is of course, as the US is just one country, the EASA states are currently 28 different countries. As EU law in this case supersedes national law there is only one legal kind of license available, the EASA license. And that allows a pilot (or mechanic) licensed that way to operate on airplanes registered in any of those 28 states. When they UK leaves that union without a deal, they will also leave all over 700 treaties that binds the EU including the one on EASA and EASA licensing. Which means, that quite legally the current licenses won't be legal anymore (which is why the CAA prepares to re-issue them as UK ones), and of course holders of UK issued EASA licenses won't be able to work outside of the UK anymore except on UK aircraft as an outstation. As most larger EU low cost carriers are pan-european trans-national airlines that affects them quite a bit, after all in the EU it is possible to work everywhere in those 28 countries on any of their aircraft with the full rights of freedom. And as a consequence easyJet is in the process of splitting the airline into an EU part, a UK part and already has a Swiss part as switzerland follows most of the EU regulations (including membership in EASA), but is not a member of the EU.To prepare that they have so far transferred something over 100 aircraft to an EU registry (they did choose austria, as the regulator is a commercial company and very easy to work with depending on monetary commitments). Next will be pilots and maintenance is outsourced anyway to local providers that are already EU licensed. Interesting thing is, easyJet is by now the biggest Austrian airline, but has no base in Austria, just some office space.

Well, this is what Sky News says and EASA implies. The CAA have, however, publicly stated that existing CAA/EASA licences will automatically convert to UK with no re-issuing at all (and they deny any plan to re-issue).

If this difference of opinion is real (rather than manufactured in the media and places like this) then things could get really interesting all the way to ICAO dispute resolution. We may not find out until Brexit day because the EU commission have banned EASA from talking directly to CAA to work out if they actually do have a fundamental disagreement or if it's merely other people misunderstanding.

Yes, that puzzled me as well. I don't have a UK issued EASA license, however, on my continental one it says on the front very large "European Union, Issued in accordance with Part-FCL, EASA Form 141 issue 2". Of course that would be invalid the moment my country would leave the EU as it is clearly based on EU and EASA regulations which do not apply anymore at that moment.

Unless, of course, the CAA and UK government will simply agree to accept that licences issued under the EASA regulations in prior years will be allowed to be used by crew (initially or indefinitely).

Truth is nobody has the faintest clue what is going to happen and at the rate civil servants are abandoning the Brexit Dept? Then there'll be very few left to make any kind of decision.
I admire EZY for facing what may happen and taking logical steps to avoid future problems.

That's the real issue isn't it - who wants to be the test case, free six month stay in a foreign jail not of your choice (I hear Greece is really nice...) included (or however long it takes for the governments to start talking again).

Maybe time for ICAO to grow a pair and stop this nonsense and insist on ICAO licences worldwide. Why does an Australian ATPL holder need to do fourteen exams to get a CAA/EASA licence to fly the same type in Europe when an EU/UK pilot can come to Australia and just do air law? That same pilot can go to the middle east or HK and be issued a local ATPL after passing air law.

ICAO where are you? ONE international ICAO ATPL. The bloody laws of physics do not change depending on jurisdiction.

If I was not allowed to ever fly to CDG after Brexit and no EU pilots were allowed to fly into London Airports I would be quite happy with that.

All those passengers can just take the train but perhaps after a week of post Brexit reciprocal self harm some common sense might return?

Well, that should be easily done: just convince Theresa, Boris and the other sidekickers to swallow the bitter pill and do as Switzerland, Norway etc have done. What do they expect? To cut themselves a different deal? How long before the other EASA, no-EU members start to kick their can down the road? It is an utter mess but for once I don't see why the EU should step back on the UK whine when the other 27 members are doing just fine with EASA.

I also have to ditch my UK CAA license but, after a recent SICKENING experience with them, perhaps this is the only sensible thing to do. After all there is some evidence of the orchestra still playing while the boat is sinking...

PZ :rolleyes:

If you look up on the IAA's website you figure out it might take anything from 12 to 14 weeks. Probably a bit longer to move to an AESA (Spanish) and it will set you back 170-ish euros. They all have one common bottleneck, tho. It is called UK CAA, they are those who will receive the transfer request and that will have to provide evidence of your ratings and medical records. The bad news is that their licensing office is in total disarray as we speak. Wish us all good luck.

PZ :ugh: