The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will take over the regulation of air operations and flight crew licensing from the Joint Aviation Authorities at the end of 2006, says EASA executive director Patrick Goudou. By then, the JAA requirements (JAR OPS and JAR FCL) will have been transcribed into regulations that will become law, administered by EASA, in all European Union states.
This marks the final stage of Europe’s transition from the JAA, which operated as a forum for harmonising the aviation regulations of the individual European states, to a centralised statutory European agency which, with the executive power of the European Commission behind it, can enforce aviation regulations as EU law.
Between now and the end of 2006, the JAA will continue to co-ordinate the European national aviation authorities (NAA), but on 1 January 2007 the JAA’s remaining functions will be redeployed. Under the title of JAA-T (transition), it will move part of its staff to the EASA headquarters in Cologne, Germany to run the JAA Liaison Office, which will work with the NAAs of non-EASA JAA states “at least until these establish a sustainable relationship with EASA”, says the JAA. The authority’s legal seat will remain in the Netherlands, and so will the other section of JAA-T, the JAA Training Office.
The NAAs will retain responsibility for operations oversight, the issue of air operators’ certificates, safety assessment of foreign aircraft, and the issue of licences.
DAVID LEARMOUNT/COLOGNE
Source: Flight International
