QUESTION TIME After Brexit How will the UKs decision to leave the EU affect pilots? We talk to Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive, and Rob Bishton, Group Director of Safety and Airspace Regulation, at the UK CAA Interview by Martin Chalk, Log Board member ill pilots need to apply for a new licence? Will airlines be able to continue to fly the same routes? Will the CAA try to change rules on operations or flight time limitations? Can I still work in the EU will my licence be recognised? Professional pilots have as many questions as other sectors about how the UKs decision to leave the European Union will affect our work. Log Board member Martin Chalk reports on a recent conversation with Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive, and Rob Bishton, Group Director of Safety and Airspace Regulation, at the UK CAA. Richard was quick to acknowledge the very, very difficult time for aviation, to welcome the opportunity of the interview, and to confirm that BALPA was a very important partner to the CAA. The first question was offered off the record as background, but Richard chose to answer it openly. Does the CAA consider that leaving the EU is a good thing for UK aviation? Since the referendum in 2016, our sole focus has not been on thinking about whether Brexit is good, bad or indifferent; it has been on making a success of it. Since 2016, thats what we have been doing our job was to make sure UK aviation, its professionals and its consumers were going to be well served, whatever the outcome. Our major aim was to maximise stability. What sort of regulator does the CAA now want to be, given the flexibility of leaving EASA? Our priority is to ensure we still have a vibrant UK aviation sector when we are through this That depends on the sector within aviation. The commercial sector does not want differences between one end of a flight and the other. There is a long tradition of working with partners around the world, under the umbrella of ICAO, towards harmonisation, which we aim to continue. We will want to use our voice and influence to really push the boundaries of modern, safe regulation that also allows industry, particularly in the UK, to recover well from COVID. For other sectors, a different approach may be taken for example, in sport and recreational aviation. This is mainly a nationally based activity and we are exploring with the sector if there is any flexibility we can use to promote grass-roots aviation in this country. Where there is real scope for innovation is around new technologies UAVs, electrical propulsion, and other places where the rulebook is not yet developed. Can the UK play a leading role in harnessing new technologies? However, while everybody is worried about the future with COVID and COVID recovery, our focus has to be on that. Our priority is to ensure that we still have a vibrant UK aviation sector when we are through the other side of this. Now the UK is no longer a member of EASA, will the general principle for commercial aviation be to remain dynamically aligned with EASA or, if not, do you have areas planned for divergences and what would those be? We dont have a list of planned changes, and that is partly because we were very instrumental in developing EASAs rule book. It would be a bit rich for us to say that we dont like any of the EASA regulations, given that we were at the table developing the rules with them! Now that we are through the political heat of the transition point, technical experts can get together on safety to work out what is best. I am a great believer that we should continue to work very, very closely with EU partners and EASA, so it is more than likely that we will move together. This will not be axiomatic, though, as we will need to make sure that it is still in the UKs best interests. We are also deepening our ties with our partners around the world the FAA in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Japan, for example. There is sometimes a misunderstanding as to what EASA is, as it is not a regulator per se. Although professional pilots around Europe have a licence that says EASA on the front, it was issued by the UK CAA or another of the regulators around the EU, under ICAO standards. So the only real capabilities that were ceded to EASA were state of design and policy making. Given the move through the transition point, is the CAA fully prepared and resourced for the new situation, given that the legal responsibility for writing the regulations has been repatriated? Over the past couple of years, we have hired nearly 50 additional people. Given that we have always been legally responsible for almost all of the work we have previously done through EASA, and without wanting to be complacent, we are comfortable that we have the resources we need. With respect to pilot licences, is it clear which licence is now needed to work both here in the UK and in the EU, and does the CAA want to move to a situation where UK and EASA licences are interchangeable? Right from the start, we were pushing for a broad, bilateral air-safety agreement, but given the political realities, that wasnt possible. We do, however, welcome the language that suggests that both sides now wish to move towards a broader and more detailed agreement. Avoiding friction and allowing folk to be interchangeable, with harmonised permits, procedures and licences, is clearly sensible. The current position is that UK licences on UK-registered aircraft and EASA licences on aircraft registered to an EU country are obviously fine. If you have an EASA licence issued before the end of the transition period, then, under UK law, it will be recognised by the UK for up to two years. We have made a general validation available for these pilots on our microsite, which should be carried with their licence. Unfortunately, the European Commission did not reciprocate, so an EASA licence is now needed to operate an aircraft registered to an EU member state. If your licence expires within the two years, and is reissued by an EASA State, then it will no longer be recognised by the UK. In the agreement struck on Christmas Eve for trade with the EU, there is an implication that EASA and UK licences will be mutually recognised. However, it is in the same place as the agreement to mutually recognise aircraft certification, which also has its own annex. When will this be resolved? Avoiding friction and allowing folk to be interchangeable is clearly sensible I think there will be pressure to avoid dual regulation and to harmonise. How that will be achieved, it is too early to tell, as the politics is still too raw. Over time, I think conversations with EASA will broaden out that basic agreement because we all share a common goal that which is in the best interests of the travelling public, our economies and our industries. There are a couple of points worth noting. Under the EASA system, you are not able to hold two licences issued by different member states. Now the UK is no longer a member of EASA, it would be possible to hold both a UK and EASA licence. Many pilots used the State of Licence Issue (SOLI) transfer protocol to transfer their UK-issued licence to an EU state, to provide certainty of being able to operate both G and Europeanregistered aircraft after the transition point. Although mutual recognition is signalled in the agreement, and we have early signs that EASA is keen to continue to work with the UK CAA to broaden the current scope of the agreement, it may take some time. So, from April, we will have a simplified system in place for those pilots who used the SOLI system to move their UK licence to Europe and want to regain a UK licence. Where we still hold details of a pilot, we will pragmatically go through the reissue of a UK licence. There is no timetable for mutual recognition agreed with our EU partners, but it will partly be driven by pilots and airlines insisting that this is a sensible direction of travel. There is also a disconnect between mutual recognition of licences and certificates and approvals and such, and the desire in some quarters to branch out and do our own things outside the EASA system. We cant make significant changes to the regulatory framework and then expect everything to be recognised by our European partners. How is the UK CAA going to avoid the regulatory capture that appears to have dogged the 737 Max certification? In an era of performance-based regulation (PBR), how does the CAA avoid PBR becoming self-regulation, especially in a safety-sensitive environment and when resources are bound to be tight? This is a good question, and one that faces regulators all around the world. Partly the answer is that we serve the best interests of the travelling public as our guiding principle. There has also been some confusion over the design of Performance Based Oversight which is not self-regulation. It is proportionate regulation based on the risk and on the confidence we have in an entitys performance when managing those risks. We should learn from other sectors, and, as someone who is not a career aviator, I believe it is necessary to ensure fresh eyes on an area periodically. Added to the internal peer review and challenge built into our Regulatory Safety Management System, we do not allow an inspector or surveyor to have a relationship that is not internally challenged. In a crisis such as the COVID one we are in right now, there is a heightened risk of regulatory capture. Consequently, we are holding dedicated sessions with the team how do we stop ourselves advocating too much for those within an industry we know is struggling? The CAA has developed a microsite specifically to answer the more detailed questions arising from changes driven by the UK leaving the EU. This can be found at info.caa.co.uk/uk-eu-transition