EASA Licensing / FCL Gatwick
 

I get the impression that all is not well at the Flight Crew Licensing Department of the CAA. I've not had any problems with them before now, and so I'm guessing that they don't have the staff to cope with an increased flow of applications for the new EASA licences.
My CPL expires on Sunday. The postman has already been past our house today, and so I'm now hoping that my new licence arrives tomorrow. If not, then to all intents and purposes I'll be unemployed. All a bit worrying as I'm meant to be working all day on Sunday.
I posted my application to FCL on the 8th October, and they received it on the 9th October. I sat back and waited for five weeks, and then started to wonder when I might expect to receive my new licence. Since then I've emailed them twice, but never received a response. I've phoned twice, and been told that my application will be given priority. The MD of the company that I work for has also written to FCL on my behalf. This week I've enlisted the help of my local MP, and he's been in contact with FCL. They've said that they'll do their best to get my licence out to me. There's still the chance that my licence may arrive tomorrow, but if it doesn't then their best won't have been good enough.
This isn't a dig at FCL. I'm sure that they are doing their best. What worries me is that surely whoever is responsible for FCL should be doing something to rescue what on the outside appears to be a rapidly developing problem.

Facing major issues with them as well.
Paperwork had been sent for initial issue on August and 3 months later i still haven't heard from them despite my continuous reminder emails and phone calls...
They used to act professionally and they were helpful but currently the situation is disappointing...

I was a bit dissapointed when I went to renew my licence back in July to discover the implementation of EASA had been delayed (again) & that I would receive a good old JAR licence instead of the shiny new EASA version I was anticipating.

It seems I should count my blessings that I was able to do same day service from 08:30 till lunchtime :hmm:

My initial ATPL was applied for on 12th September,

I'm still waiting for it :ugh:

They have my log book so to date, I'm 11weeks out of date on entries :E

I have spoken to them and they say its in the pile of 'to assess' :uhoh:

They prioritised those who's licences were expired or about to expire.
By constantly calling them you create more delays.
They are aware of the issues and are working as quickly as possible.
Yes, frustrating, I got caught up in the delays earlier.
I submitted my paper work 3rd week of September and got the licence back 3rd week of October. It was just a straight transfer from JAA to EASA, no type ratings etc to add.

F900 Ex: I may yet have to drive down to Gatwick. I can't say that I fancy a 360 mile round trip to beg for my licence. I fail to see how turning up in person suddenly makes it easier for them to process my application. I would have thought that a series of phone calls and letters from myself, my boss, and an MP would have highlighted my need for prompt action.

Had my sim recently where the TRE said that with only 8 months left on my license I should start to get things moving, quick.

What a complete shambles.

Another set of employees sitting in jobs not answerable to the free market. Imagine an airline treated their customers like this? They'd be out of business within days.

Redsnail: I wouldn't consider calling up twice to check on the progress of my application to be excessive. I'm trying to do a straight swap, just like you did in September. The difference is that you had to wait for a month whereas I've nearly been waiting for two months.

Esperanza, the "constant calling" wasn't referenced to you. :)

No worries...I'm a tad stressed at the moment.

I called recently to inquire about the renewal of my ATPL and was advised that they currently have a 2 month delay in processing.
Makes it interesting when in the same conversation I asked "how long before my licence expires can I renew?" "Oh, 60 days sir.".... So 2 months then!
They still take the £130 on time though! :ugh:

I did the same day, over the counter service, and that worked. Got it back at 3:30pm.

I flew from Poland, and did the same day service. I was the first one there and got the new license and type rating in 1 hour and 30 minutes

The Mills of God Grind Sure, Grind Slow.
 

Rest assured that when the aircraft ops begin to be affected by unlicensed drivers, the airlines will lean on the Chaps Against Aviation and the prospect of financial punishment from their real paymasters will produce results?

Meanntime as our degraded status and lack of respect from the Back Office Staff will only continue to get worse. :rolleyes:

In the space of a few weeks I've been issued 3 EASA ATPLs, each one has come back with different types of error that prevent me from using it in my airline job. I'm currently awaiting issue 4 and the CAA assure me they are dealing with it urgently. The frustrating thing is that my JAA licence doesnt expire until 2016 and it would be so simple if the CAA just allowed me to continue using that until such time their admin problems are resolved, however they say I can't because I'm now listed as an EASA licence holder. WHY am I an EASA holder 4 years sooner than I needed to be? Because I made a minor change to my PPL instructor privileges after their admin change over date of 17th September! :ugh:

It may be no consolation, but I am aware of some of the stuff going on behind the scenes here. The CAA are pretty inefficient at the best of times, but a 'perfect storm' has developed which makes them even worse than normal - if such a thing were possible. Under the new EASA rules, which no one fully understands (and may explain the numerous mistakes on people's licences), no Type Rating Instructor (TRI) or Type Rating Examiner (TRE) can be revalidated unless he has an EASA licence. Therefore many airlines have decided to apply en-masse for their TRIs/TREs to receive new EASA licences. In the case of easyJet, who I work for, that is the best part of 100 people - that is a lot of licences. I assume the same scene exists at Virgin, BA, Monarch, FlyBe etc and that makes for a massive spike in applications. To add to the misery, at the very time we needed all hands on deck, the CAA temporarily stopped accepting applications to get themselves in order at the time of the changeover. The end result is a massive backlog of applications and an apparent lack of overall direction to try and sort it. No consolation as I say, but even the CAA are recognising it is all a shambles. I just hope that someone, somewhere can get a grip on the situation fairly soon and even send out some sort of communication to everyone waiting. It does have a 'third world' feel about it sadly and rivals anything you would come across in Africa or similar.

Well that certainly explains the situation quite nicely. I'm waiting to see if the postman brings me my licence today. I'm becoming more stressed by the hour.

They've promised my 4th amendment in todays post, fingers crossed! :rolleyes:

Same day service is definitely the way to go. I had to change my JAA ATPL for a EASA ATPL a couple of months ago and I arrived LGW at 0630. I was number 3 in the queue and sorted by 1100. Number 1 in the queue had driven from Aberdeen and the second guy had flown in from Europe the night before. The guys and gals at the same day service desk were their usual helpful and friendly selves but even they intimated that there was a big problem brewing.
I think the thing to remember, and it isn't easy, is that CAA have had EASA dumped on them just as much as we have and it really isn't their fault that the system can't cope. We need to look several rungs higher up the food chain for that.

I think that we need to look to the top of the food chain.
The postman has been and gone. Still no licence. So that's me out of a job until I somehow get my licence. I'll have to call them on Monday morning, and then think about driving down to Gatwick to beg. I would drive down on Monday, but for all I know it could arrive through the post on Monday.
I'm fuming. I really don't need this hassle. I'm having an operation a week on Tuesday. I'll then be off for the rest of the year, recovering, while getting paid a mixture of holiday and Statutory Sick Pay.

Alexander. Thanks for the update. It's not as if EASA sprang into life overnight and said "ooh - need to change over licences tout de suite". The licensing authorities have had plenty of time to prepare.

Sapco2 - so what have you learnt about CAA admin from this! Does this mean you can't go to work?

And weren't pan-european licences supposed to simplify matters?

At least the fee that I paid is helping somebody...

Mr Haines’ salary will remain unchanged at £250,000 per annum; the CAA’s funding comes from the charges it imposes on the industry, rather than the taxpayer - he holds no other public appointments.

I'm sorry, but this has all gone too far.

I went to the CAA for my EASA licence. It was issued within 4 hours and I was met by a very friendly team.

If your income depends on your licence then take it to the CAA in person.

I hear what you're saying, and I have no doubt that the counter staff are very helpful. However I don't understand how it's possible to produce a licence in a matter of hours if I turn up in person, whereas it hasn't been possible in close to eight weeks, and after phone calls and pressure from an MP. It's a principle thing. Having said that I can't afford to have principles.

Omnishambles, like so much else in this country. Bet it doesn't take MPs 2 months plus to get their expenses back? No, thought not...

@ Delta Hotel, I'm not sure yet how to play the next stage. Im due back to work on Tuesday. The 4th EASA licence was promised for today but it never arrived. The bosses are aware of the situation and they've been really understanding!

Get to LGW and do it over the counter. Be there early (opens at 9 but first in the queue are there before 8) Make sure you get a number for the queue.
I think the CAA should recommend more over the counter applications, increase the hours its open, add more staff, open the slots at lunch time. Pilots are being grounded because of this.
Once you get to the counter service is more than efficient

I went last Tuesday, got there at 7 30 and was number 4, out by 11 am, the guys on security give you a number card on arrival, they said if Ihad gone on Monday I would of been No 10 by 7.30.
I waited over 5 weeks using the post service, gave up and drove down there.

The public counter is open from 8.30 at the moment. Good luck.

Umm...so I should aim to leave home before 4am, wait around down there for an unspecified length of time, and then drive back home again. Then I'll be back to work the next day for an eight to ten hour day of back to back training flights. Will the CAA reimburse me for my travelling expenses and loss of earnings? No, of course they won't.
Alternatively they could just post me my new licence.
I'll point out that at no time over the last eight weeks have I received any form of communication from the CAA.

Umm... my issue 1 licence came from over the counter but with an LV omission... then came version 2 via post; this time they included the LV certification but removed the IR... then version 3 came via post - they'd altered my test dates this time and listed my IR as an expired rating... I emailed them and telephoned them as soon as their office opened, they promised faithfully I'd receive version 4 by last Saturday but it never arrived... I'm giving them till Monday. If I haven't got it by then, it's a 4am start to LGW for me too, probably on Tuesday.

Klaxon

I too have my application in and still have a couple of weeks to go. Am I right in assuming you already had an application in the system when you rocked up to the express counter? If this is so then I can keep this method in my back pocket should it get a little too close to the cut off date. :hmm:

Him Jim, yes it was in the system, I was expecting a fight on arrival but it was very straight forward in my case. I did not pre book, just turned up. There were people arriving when I left so maybe I was a bit early?.

Top tip: it does not have to be the licence holder to take all the paperwork to Gatwick for the same-day counter service, it can by ANYONE. As long as they have your number in case they need to make any additional enquiries. They confirmed this and I had a friend do it who lives nearer to Gatwick, and got my EASA licence the same day.

Thanks for that, now wish I'd got copies of the 'validation from a head of training' bit, that was a real headache. Still, it really does beg the question, which has been asked inummerable times before, why can I get it done in a morning down in Gatwick yet it takes five weeks plus by post? Bizarre! :confused:

I've received a phone call from FCL. They're sending my licence out today by FedEx, so it should arrive tomorrow. A big thank you to whoever finally sorted this out for me.

Can you use the same day service for initial issue of a CPL?

The CAA has become a pigs trough for the Directors. Just have a look at their Annual report. All of the Exec Directors - and a woman who is not a member of the board but is a Director (????) - are paid more than the Prime Minister.

Pigs trough.

And yet they can't even cope with a 100% predictable rush on one of their most basic tasks - issuing licenses. Shouldn't they take a large salary cut for their incompetence???.

You can't invent stories like the CAA - reality is just so much crazier than fiction.

Worrying indeed.
So I've got a JAA ATP issued by uk CAA which doesn't expire until 2014. Am I thinking I need to get my ass down to gatwick by April to change it, at no doubt, considerable cost ??

Question:

Why if you have a UK issued JAA licence not due to expire for several years are so many people wanting to exchange it for a EASA licence?

Is it a requirement to do so?
Is it the curiosity of wanting a new licence?

Is it possible for a TRE to just continue signing the space in the old licence for IR renewals until the licence expires, or at least until the expiry date gets closer (win 12 months).

And its a reasonable question. Answer:
Nobody freely wants to change, it's just that any change whatsoever, be it a change of address, an additional rating or such like will trigger the changeover under CAA rules at an involuntary cost of £139.00.