The UK Civil Aviation Authority may attempt to rush through Parliament an amendment to the Air Navigation Order prohibiting the use of single-engined aircraft at night for commercial-transport operations. The decision hangs on a court case being brought by UK-based Martini Airfreight Services after its operations using a chartered Norwegian-registered Cessna Caravan 208B were banned.
Martini had been using the aircraft for night newspaper-delivery flights. To avoid contravening the CAA regulation, which specifies that UK-registered single-engine aircraft cannot be operated commercially at night, the operator chartered a Norwegian-registered 208B from Hangar 5 (H5). The third European air-transport-liberalisation package permits Norwegian airlines to operate freely in European Union (EU)/ EFTA countries, and so the chartered Norwegian carrier has taken the case to the UK High Court. The Court has already ruled that, under existing UK regulations, H5 had a right to operate the 208B in the UK.
The case was continuing as Flight International went to press.
CAA barrister Cherie Booth, the wife of the new UK prime minister Tony Blair, told the court the CAA was considering rewriting the Air Navigation Order if it lost the case. Under European regulations it is not clear whether the UK is able legally to undertake such a move.
According to H5's lawyer Ian Clark of Clark Ricketts, the CAA is now arguing that the Norwegian authorities have a duty to consider UK practices in the rights conferred on Norwegian carriers through the issue of an operator's certificate. Court judgment is expected on 17 June. H5 says that if the CAA's argument is accepted, it will challenge the judgment in the European Court under the third liberalisation package.
Meanwhile a European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) review group is considering whether JAA Requirements (JAR Ops 1), which come into effect in 1999, should approve any commercial single-engine operations. Clark says the JAR Ops draft at present favours commercial cargo operations.
Increasingly countries such as Canada, Australia and a number of EU nations are approving such operations as single-engine aircraft become increasingly reliable. The UK CAA says its concern is based on the fact that the UK is unusually densely populated.
Source: Flight International
