UK EASA licensed TREs could sign the license from any EASA state before the end of last year. However, one had to bring the national forms for them to fill out and comply with the relevant rules around them, but that is certainly not rocket science. So yes, one could SOLI out before the transition period was over, but of course, that took a minimum amount of work.

And no, life is not fair, it never was and never will be, most people learn that very early on. Kindergarden is a normal place where that starts to sink in. In this case it was of course aided by the fact that anything to do with the ECJ, even if it was very far removed, was completely impossible to accept for Lord Snowflake, while the EU is a very much rule based organization (which does not mean that they can't change the rules very fast if needed) and therefore follows its own rules. The UK wanted to be a third country, Ok, lets start from the status of a third country without any relation to the EU and negotiate upwards from that. Aviation and especially licensing was not very important to either side.

As to the requirement by Discover: not unusual anywhere in the EU, but in this case probably even excusable, after all German is by far the language with the most native speakers in the EU both before and after brexit. Close to a 100 million people in Europe do speak some form of german natively, in quite a few countries, and some do learn it in school, as most of Europe teaches at least two foreign languages in school (one of them usually being english).

You're absolutely right, but not for the period between 1/1/21 and getting your UK licence issued, which you couldn't apply for until 1/4/21, and which no timescale can be provided by CAA. So even if you were lucky enough to be due your LPC in December, or could convince your employer to do an early LPC in December, you would have no idea if you would have a UK licence by your next LPC. The process for applying for issue of the UK licence was not finalised by 1/1/21, just that it would be available at some point.

Added to that, realistically you would have needed to apply for SOLI by September time 2020 to know you would receive your non-UK EASA licence by 31/3/21, which is the cut-off off for being able to use it in the UK under validation until you got your UK licence issued - which you can't apply for until 1/4/21 and have no idea how long it will take to arrive. So now you've got to get your LPC done in September 2020, and hope you have your UK licence by August 2021, but with no knowledge of how that process will look or how long it will take. That's also assuming you don't need a new type rating added to your licence for example in the meantime.

In conclusion you can decide for yourself how much "work" was involved, but you sure needed to enjoy gambling if you had a UK job you wanted to make sure you could continue flying in for the next year or so - so no I don't believe it was an option for many of your fellow professionals.

The rest is all politics and out of our hands.

Smooth Airperator

Instead of whinging about how unfair the world is, you could have spent your time researching the ITALIAN province of South tyrol. For instance, I just learned that 62.3% of the population of South Tyrol speaks German as a first language. Who would have known, Italians that speak German.

https://jakubmarian.com/average-numb...eu-population/


Raised bilingual Dutch/Spanish, had 6 years high school English, French & German.

There are other nationalities working at Air France, Lufthansa, Swiss and KLM. They speak French, German or Dutch.
They all meat the requirement of speaking the (or one of the) national language(s). There's nothing unfair about that.
A language requirement and a requirement for the right to work in that country is not discriminating.

Smooth Airperator

Here I am.

Go skiing in the Dolomites - everyone speaks Italian and German. (And probably English).

ps. If I ran a German company I’d want German speakers. Likewise France, Italy, Spain etc

Smooth Airperator

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Smooth Airperator

https://www.mallorcazeitung.es/

largest newspaper in the Balearic Islands......

After the demise of Air Europe in 1991, Condor took a whole bunch but they all had to do the full German ATPL. End of season, I think only a couple remained, German speakers only.
I went to Holland. Only did Air Law for full validation. Very hard to find a Dutch speaker anywhere in Holland. Funny old world eh ?

Anyone know what the process will be for those working for an EU operator with EASA licence and and also holding the new U.K. Part-FCL licence when getting the LPC revalidated ? EASA TRE revalidates for EASA, but can the new expiry date be transferred to the new U.K. Part-FCL or will the pilot need to undertake two separate LPCs?

I’m currently TRE on IAA licence and I can sign EASA and UK licences (at least until end 2022), so if someone had both licences and it was all in date and appropriate and my airline allowed it (and it will) then I would sign both. Because it would entail extra paperwork (two notifications, post check reports etc) I would expect extra beer.

Once I get my UK licence back I will put my uk number on the uk signing and my IAA number on the EASA signing.

Thanks deltahotel, much appreciated.

Is there anything going on behind the scenes in the EU and UK on this lack of grandfather rights for exchange of EASA licenses that are issued before Brexit?
As it’s so insane that my non UK, but EASA doctor did my medical the last decade under EASA rules and now I have to do a whole new initial EASA medical as my flying license and with that my medical were in the past changed to a UK EASA license.
It’s an unnecessary destruction of qualifications and just obstructing pilots for what purpose? The Europarlement and European Committee should correct this.

No, you can blame the UK Government. Only them.

You were warned, you didn't act. Deal with it.

It's this simple, the UK did everything.

Considering the EU commission just threatened the UK with remedial tariffs and quotas as the UK continues to be in breach of the TCA i do not think any further negotiation is really taking place on anything. It is kinda sad that things have deteriorated to such a state, but i am afraid it was, in the end, unavoidable. Things probably will get worse before they can change for the better.

Horsepowerrr

The UK unilaterally decided to leave EASA. They had the choice to stay in. They have the choice to re-join. Not really up to Europarliament or Committee, is it...

It’s not exactly horsepowers fault is it? There’s no need to throw fuel on the fire. It still amazes me how some here are criticising fellow pilots for the mess they find themselves unwillingly caught up in.
It’s absolutely pathetic.

They are in this mess due to the UK Government, not the EU or EASA.
Your continuous attempt at blaming the EU and EASA is pathetic.

Contact Approach

Nobody is blaming individual pilots for this. But individual pilots are blaming the EU and EASA for the current state. Nothing wrong with adding another viewpoint then?

Banana Joe, if that’s all you can say then just don’t as you made your point before and yes we could have all SOLI’d before, but many didn’t for various reasons. That’s not the point though.

The point is, why doesn’t EASA give grandfather rights to pilots who had a UK EASA license before Brexit happened? And is this still being looked at or considered, like it has with many other professions and their qualifications?

As why is this so bad to do this and why don’t they look after the people who are licensed according to their own system and rules? And why obstruct the pilots? What good does it do? The UK doesn’t do this and doesn’t make it so difficult and does accept EASA licenses.
And that is on the EU/ EASA as that is their choice.

One could wonder in a way how this is possible in a world where equality seems more important than ever before. And EASA decides to disadvantage a certain group of people who just got their license issued by an authority that was operating according to EASA rules, but now isn’t a friend anymore.

There is, again, quite a bit to be unpacked here. Most that had any qualms about the post-brexit situation seem to have been able to SOLI out or do not care as they do not have the right to live and work in the EU anyway. Just judging by the number of posters on the SOLI threads compared to this one. Therefore, not a big problem right now for the industry.

Yes, of course the whole mess was caused by the UK government. First by the decision to leave the EU, and then, by the decision to just want to have a very thin trade deal and the wish to be treated as a normal third country, none of which has a license acceptance or grandfather scheme with the EU. EASA in itself is not deciding anything there, it is simply applying the letter of the EU regulations, nothing more, nothing less. The EU commission could of course negotiate something else if their counterparts wish to do that, if there is any incentive for them to do so, which would be only the case if there was a major demand from member states.

And of course, UK issued licenses were fully recognized as long as the UK CAA was a local authority under the EASA oversight. Since january 1st the CAA is not seen as a competent authority anymore since it does not have the full capability as a regulator, shown in fact by the willy-nilly acceptance of licenses over which they have absolutely no regulatory oversight. The CAA has to earn the trust of other authorities over time, but has not yet done so.

There has been no change to any EU regulated profession as none of the 19 TCA committees has started working yet, however, many professions are not regulated on an EU level and can be regulated differently in each member state. Currently there is no ongoing process to change the status of any EU regulated profession, which does include pilots. There is no need for that as there is no shortage in suitably qualified personnel in the EU anyway, therefore the UK would have to give the EU major concessions to change the status quo, the UK is currently seen in the EU as unreliable or even hostile and would have a lot of convincing to do.

That doesn’t explain why the EASA don’t want to recognize the training done in any state members (other than UK) and issued on a UK licence.

it’s been 4 months and no guidelines have been published.

Therefore force pilots to retake those training. The conversion as a 3rd country doesn’t cover instructor certificate.

There is no valid argument as to why training undertaken pre-brexit, under EASA and completed across the EU is no longer recognised other than political nonsense.

It is much simpler than that though. The UK wanted to be treated as a third country. Third countries licenses are not recognized in the EU. It doesn't matter if one did its complete training in non-UK EU countries, only if the license held at the time the UK became a third country was one issued by the UK or not. It is really as simple as that. Leaving the EU did in fact reset every and all things formerly regulated by the EU to a non-EU recognized status, except if regulated differently in the TCA or the WA.

Again, to change that there would need to be an incentive to do that on an EU level. And to be fair, for british airlines there is probably no wish to do that either, as it is in their favor to trap pilots within their regulatory region and therefore being able to drive down conditions even faster without any fear of them escaping easily elsewhere.

Denti

This is what the Russian CAA has been doing for years for the exact same reasons.

Same situation. I am an EU jobless pilot with a useless UK licence......:confused:

Contact Approach

Exactly right. We have to deal with what the politicians decide, like with everything else.
It isn’t a law though in this case. It’s EASA’s choice to still accept their own organization licenses from before or not. UK or not, it was and technically still is an EASA license.

Its as if a car dealer argues with the manufacturer resulting in a break and change of brand for the dealer.
The dealer will still accept and service the cars of the manufacturer, but the manufacturer tells customers the cars of their brand they bought from that dealer before the break won’t be seen as their brand cars anymore and won’t be accepted at any other brand dealership. 🤦🏼‍♂️

What EASA does is by their choice and doesn’t punish the UK, but just individual pilots who spend a lot of time and money to get their EASA license. Completely unnecessary. No politician will stop or say it’s unacceptable EASA will accept pilots who got a license fully IAW EASA regulations before Brexit. And why would they? As those are issued under EU/ EASA regulations. It’s simply unnecessary obstruction that serve little to no purpose. Period.

Again, EASA does not have a say in that. EASA does not make laws or international agreements, those are negotiated on commission level and decided by the European Parliament. And it would have required primary law to recognize licenses issued by a third country. It was offered to the UK of course, on a reciprocal non-time limited way, together with all other EU regulated professions. The UK declined. Same as with the other professions, the UK would have to make watertight assurances that it will be fully and dynamically aligned to EU regulations, following all judgements from the ECJ. Again, it was the UKs choice to decline reciprocal treatment, and the EU simply follows the letter of its agreements and laws, unlike the UK of course. It is basically the same case as with border controls. The EU had those running from day one, the UK is unable to do so and therefore does not fulfill the most basic WTO rule there is. Same for licenses, as it was unable to issue new CAA licenses in a timely manner it had to accept EASA licenses, not because it wanted to play nice, simply because it was unable to work properly.

Yes, those too slow to act fall through the cracks, that is always the case with a deadline. It has been nearly four months, by now one could have done a new initial EASA medical and the required ATO training and checks to get his EASA license, the 14 theoretical exams are apparently accepted in some EASA countries if written in that country, as are hours if properly documented.

This is a ridiculous arguement. Let us suppose that the UK had offered the EU reciprocal non-time limited licence recognition provided they submitted to UK court jurisdiction. Would they take it? Of course not. This whole posture stems from the concept that the EU is somehow bigger, and more authoritative than the indvidual nation state. Some believe that to be so, many others not.

Denti,

The situation is absurd. You can say what you want but that is a fact. EASA could absolutely issue a new EASA licence, similarly to what the U.K. is doing, to those who before brexit previously held an EASA licence.
Anything else is political nonsense and helps no pilot I know.

As the hostility and protectionism of Europe becomes more apparent by the day, I dearly wish UK Aviation regulation and licensing would pivot to America's FAA, like the so many other industries who are simply turning away from Europe to nations and blocks who actually want to do business.

Id fully support the UK joining the FAA and negotiating some sort of green card scheme for pilots and vice versa.

So is Brexit and it also benefits only very few people, mostly those with deep pockets.

​​​​​​​Talk about unicorns...

What some of you don't get is that the UK CAA's decision honour EASA licenses was to protect UK airlines who would overnight have a headache on their hands. Majority of EASA license holders operating out of UK basis are not Brits. This was for the job protection of Europeans and to ensure airlines could continue to operate with a full workforce (though Covid ruined that plan anyway). All of this proves the point once again that the UK provides refuge to way more European pilots than the other way around.

Sick

Really? Hostility? If a country leaves a club all its certificates in that club are null and void, it is simply a normal consequence, there is no ill will involved. And of course, EASA made everyone aware of that for more than 3 years.

The UK should abandon EASA and join the FAA. Far greater opportunities. Europe is a sinking ship.

Again, how are you going to make use of those opportunities without at least a Green Card?

Sick

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…

Here I was thinking that it was the U.K. that ran a protectionist, hostile, anti-EU, BREXIT campaign. And unilaterally turned down every single offer to stay in cooperation with its closest neighbours. I haven’t heard of many companies running away from the worlds biggest trading bloc, but quite a few seem to be moving away from the U.K. post BREXIT, yes?

And in the same context of protectionism, mentioning the US and FAA as somehow being better. Did anybody not hear about ‘America First’?

Yes. People who did not want, or felt they couldn’t, SOLI out in time, are victims of the U.K. leaving EASA. As are all other formerly EU licensed professionals who can no longer do business freely like they used to.

FYI. If you want an FAA License, the process is actually quite quick and straight forward if you hold an ICAO License. Knock yourself out

Brexit is over and its time for a new chapter. Good bye Europe, hello America! Quite nice to get rid of the many language barriers too.