David Learmount/LONDON

Uncertainties about imminent European rules governing pilot training schools have created confusion for the training industry, both in Europe and in the USA. Europe's new joint standards for pilot training and licensing are about to be implemented, yet fundamental aspects of the regulations governing them are still in a state of flux.

In question are prospective rules governing where flight training organisations must be based to be eligible for a licence to train pilots under the European Joint Aviation Requirements for flightcrew licensing (JAR FCL) and in whose airspace flying tests will have to be carried out. The JAR FCL are to take effect on 1 July, but flying training organisations still do not know what rules they will face.

Whatever decisions are made as a result of the political battle between the USA and Europe will change the nature of the European flying training industry and almost certainly influence the world market in the medium and long term.

The 29-state European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) has been advised by the European Commission, under pressure from the USA, that it must change the adopted JAR FCL rule which requires approved training organisations to have their ownership and main place of business in a JAA state.

It has become clear, however, that for the time being the resulting change is likely to hedge these location requirements rather than drop them.

The JAA's head of FCL, Anke Mengelberg- Thissen, says that, under the new rules, many JAA schools will continue to carry out a proportion of their training in the USA. She adds, however: "We don't want all of the training done in the USA, from the beginning at least."

Because of the uncertainty, the world's largest pilot training organisation, FlightSafety International, has stopped offering JAR FCL courses despite having made what it views as "a considerable investment" to win approval to offer them. FlightSafety had, for the past two years, been training pilots for the UK commercial pilot's licence at its Vero Beach, Florida, school and was preparing, from 1 July, to offer the full JAR FCL course. Although FlightSafety officials say the company has no statement to make on the situation, it admits that all applicants have been refused admission to the JARFCL course "-because the situation is evolving". The company is waiting for a ruling that will clarify its position.

The size of the task of harmonising the European training organisations, let alone overseeing foreign schools that wish to set up JAR FCL courses, has surprised the JAA. Mengelberg-Thissen explains: "We haven't yet harmonised in Europe. We have to do that. We have to put JAR FCL in place."

Silvio Dreier, director of the Horizon Swiss Flight Academy, says JAR FCL will not stop the market in pilot training becoming truly global. Colin Green, marketing chief of the UK simulator training centre SFT and the European College of Aviation, says: "We had given up long ago the idea that the restrictive clauses would survive in the long term."

This uncertainty will remain during the lengthy rulemaking process, which has not even begun yet. Estimates as to when the rule will be finalised vary from just before the 1 July JARFCL implementation date to about September. Any training organisation based in one of the JAA states may be confident of JAR FCL approval, but confusion still reigns because its operators do not know whether they will be competing directly with non-European training organisations, so they are unable to make precise business plans.

FlightSafety is only one of two pilot training schools in the USA and one in Australia that was recently given approval by the UK Civil Aviation Authority to train pilots for the UK commercial pilot's licence. All invested heavily in meeting the JAR FCL standards that replace the UK rules on 1 July. If the new ruling retains clauses that make siting outside Europe impossible or uneconomical, however, the schools' situation will be unclear.

The UK's CAA says its approval for courses abroad will still stand after JAR FCL implementation, and that any pilots who graduate under such arrangements will have trained to a JAR FCL curriculum and therefore be cleared to fly for UK airlines. These pilots' licences, however, may turn out to be hybrids that allow them to fly only with UK airlines - or carriers elsewhere in the world that have traditionally accepted UK licences - if the training organisation at which they train and test is based outside JAA states.

At a meeting of the JAR FCL committee on 11-14 January in Madrid, Spain, UK proposals to award "grandfather rights" to those foreign schools that had been effectively prepared for JAR FCL status by evolution with the UK Civil Aviation Authority's training scheme met a frosty reception. This was on the basis that exceptions to the JAR FCL be made.

Apart from FlightSafety Vero Beach, the other US organisation concerned is the Western Michigan University College of Aviation, which is the only non-JAA based institution to train British Airways ab initio pilots (those who have no previous flying experience). The university's interim director, David Thomas, is optimistic that its European training plans will survive whatever the JAA sees fit to do - partly because, he says, BA wants it to survive. "You just keep going until you are stopped," he says. Thomas adds that Western Michigan is in an early phase of negotiation to create an alliance with a UK-based training house that could help it through any interim stage.

BA's head of strategy and resources (flight operations), Paul Douglas, insists that the airline will continue its ab initio courses at Western Michigan well past the JAR FCL implementation date. He points out that cross-border training is not a new concept, in that European and US schools have been training foreign students since aviation began, adding: "The only border that seems difficult to cross is the one between Europe and the USA." Douglas says he believes strongly that European schools should recognise that what is going on at Western Michigan represents an opp\ortunity for Europe to influence US thinking and practice on ab initio training for airline pilots.

Mick Daw, chief executive of Oxford Aviation Holdings, owner of Europe's largest training organisation, the Oxford Air Training School, believes that the shape of the training world is changing fast and will soon be truly deregulated in the geographical sense. The arrival of JAR FCL in its present form has created a larger marketplace for European airlines, he says. That will mean more competition for all the schools serving the European market.

Daw believes, however, that much of the European training market is complacent. "No-one owes us a living. The Americans will find a way of getting into the European market," Daw warns. He predicts: "In six to 12 months there will be strategic alliances worldwide. We are certainly considering our own position here. We will talk to anyone about strategic alliances on the one proviso that any partner provides extremely high quality training."

Horizon's Dreier agrees that consolidation will be a major part of the future, but is convinced that there is a place for the small player that can offer flexibility and provides high quality. "Going big does not necessarily mean being successful," Dreier says.

SFT's Green says: "If you stand still, you are going backwards. The global demand is there and Europe will play a major part in supplying it." This, he believes is likely to mean consolidation for major players in the marketplace.

The UK's British Aerospace Flight Training (BAeFT), at Prestwick, Scotland, is implementing a strategic plan for European and global expansion. It has acquired two training organisations in Australia to capitalise on that country's position in the Asia-Pacific market. One school, at Tamworth, New South Wales, spread its civil risk by having won government ab initio training contracts.

Meanwhile, BAeFT will have moved its whole operation to an airfield somewhere in southern Europe by the end of this year, says chief instructor Capt Steve Green. He declines to be more specific until negotiations with the government concerned are completed. Industry gossip favours Spain, which has competitive costs, good flying weather, JAA privileges and the European air traffic control environment.

Green believes that the business environment is not the only thing that needs to change. For a truly global market, he says, the world, backed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, should aim for a harmonisation process leading to a global FCL.

EUROPEAN RULES

European Joint Aviation Requirements for flightcrew licensing contains strict rules about where a licensed flying training organisation may be based (JAR FCL 1.055, Appendix 1, sub-part A, paragraphs 1 and 2). This rule is being considered for "restructuring". If it is not changed by 1 July, when JAR FCL is implemented, the rule will include the following basic requirements:

the training organisation must obtain the approval of the authority of a JAA member state; the training organisation principal place of business and registered office are in that member state; the training organisation is owned and continues to be owned directly or through majority ownership by member states and/or nationals of member states; the authority can enforce the JAR FCL requirements.

Source: Flight International

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