After spending 18 months finding its feet, Europe's safety regulator is set to consolidate its new powers in 2005
Eighteen months on from the establishment of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), its executive director, Patrick Goudou, is upbeat; the US Federal Aviation Administration recently gave the organisation a qualified thumbs up, staffing targets were met and plans to expand its role were drawn up at the end of last year. Still Goudou has lots to concentrate on as EASA publishes its work plan for 2005 this week – the FAA audit has revealed some minor procedural flaws, there is a looming problem in hiring sufficient certification experts and the agency is grappling with future definitions of its remit.
Despite all this, 2005 promises to be the coming of age for EASA, as the Cologne-based agency will physically assume the certification tasks it was assigned as the successor to the Joint Aviation Authorities, as well as branching out to other areas of airworthiness. Until now the agency, which was officially launched in September 2003, has officially overseen all aircraft, component and modification approvals, but has in reality outsourced the work back to national aviation authorities.
Certification of the Airbus A350 by EASA's own specialists is one of a few key goals Goudou has set himself. Also, the agency's remit will be expanded by the end of 2007 to include flight crew licensing (FCL), third country aircraft and aircraft operations. Plans are being drawn up to take control of all European airworthiness issues.
But for Goudou, the symbolic value of following a certification through from start to finish using an all-EASA team could be lost if a team of certification experts is not assembled in time.
"We have to recruit more people; it's still a big issue as we expect to be 200 at the end of 2005 and we are 100 at the moment," he says. The agency's recruitment team has been boosted, as attracting certification experts is proving trickier than last year's task of appointing key directors and filling a series of administrative posts. "Our main challenge is to be sure to recruit aviation experts," he says. EASA expects to draw the bulk of its certification "directorate", or team, from experts working for the national aviation authorities (NAA), currently engaged in approvals. Yet nationals of some countries seem reluctant to relocate to Cologne for reasons Goudou describes a "psychological" rather than professional.
Goudou himself knows the effort involved in relocating, having moved first to Brussels and now to Cologne after a career previously spent entirely in France. A graduate of the prestigious Parisien École Polytechnique and Toulouse's École Supérieure de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, he specialised in aero-engines and began his career working in the government's armaments procurement agency. His certification expertise was gained during a 10-year stint testing engines at the French national engine test centre at Saclay, before he accepted the post of international affairs director at shipbuilder DCN, ending up as chief executive of the Aeronautical Maintenance Agency.
EASA has metits obligation to present the European Commission with an "opinion", or draft view on its future shape and scope. "We issued our opinion in December after long consultation with the industry and we hope the Commission issues its opinion broadly in line with ours," says Goudou.
The EC uses EASA as an expert body, as the agency cannot frame laws itself, but the Commission is expected to stick with EASA's wish to take on responsibility for FCL, non-European Union aircraft and operational rules. But the European Parliament, which also has to approve the mission expansion, may throw up some hurdles in response to unhappy elements of the general aviation community or conservative political parties, although Goudou does not see either of these seriously delaying the project.
Goudou places a particular emphasis on understanding the concerns of the aerospace industry. "We always want to be at the forefront of innovation and we will request industry to tell us about new technology in equipment and materials so that we have the right regulations in place before certification efforts rather than during," he says.
He cites advances such as tilt-rotors and electronic flight bags as areas where rules need to be written and time to certification could be reduced through better early co-operation.
The danger of stepping on the NAAs' toes is ever present and Goudou says the separation between the two layers is clear in his mind, ever if others continue to pose questions.
"The NAAs will keep a clear role as stated in the basic regulation [establishing EASA]; they will look after POAs [production organisation approvals], individual certificates, crew licensing and other areas," he says. However, Airbus has already requested an EASA-issued POA and Goudou admits that "where requested" the agency will act above the NAAs.
Goudou and his team seem to have convinced the FAA of the clarity of the structure, as a team from the US agency gave its European counterpart a "generally positive report", says Goudou. "They said the agency was in place, that rulemaking, regulations and structure were in place and they were satisfied with its legal basis." However, the FAA did have concerns over standardisation tasks and the enforcement of action against underperforming facilities. "It seems difficult in today's legal framework to have enforcement rights, because the EU is not a federal state, so we have to use the law enforcement in member states," he says.
Despite this, the FAA is positive about having a single counterpart with which to work towards common standards, he says. "Mutual recognition is our aim, to avoid double-tasking," says Goudou. If he were able to pull off this trick, he would indeed have good reason to be upbeat.
JUSTIN WASTNAGE/COLOGNE
Source: Flight International
