General aviation (GA) pilots have just 12 months to obtain new European licenses to enable them to fly European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)-approved aircraft in European Union member states beginning in April next year. EASA proposals for flight-crew licences (FCLs) have completed all pre-regulatory stages and translation and were expected to go to the European Parliament by early April and become law by mid-year. When the EASA takes over in April 2012, national aviation authorities (NAAs) will lose responsibility for local pilot licensing, according to Peter Moxham,a co-opted member of the EASA FCL 001 Working Group and chairman of the Royal Aeronautical Society Flight Operations Group.
Because the region’s Joint Aviation Authorities regulations (JARs) have no legal force, there is no current Europe-wide legislation and the NAAs have cherry-picked preferred standards for local application. With many different standards in place across Europe, the EASA was established in 2002 to unify aviation rule-making and propose legislation. JAA did standardize commercial-pilot licences (CPLs), but private flying licenses and ratings continued to vary between and among countries.
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