I N T E RV I E W Its for the airlines to come up with the initiatives and ideas about what they want to do and then to say we can get this far, but weve found a block UK aviation industry in the world, but then everything got thrown out the window. Within a couple of months of me joining [the CAA], Monarch Airlines failed. Weve also had Covid-19, the failure of Thomas Cook, and we left the EU. The combination of the pandemic and Brexit has caused a massive amount of change over a very short period, which is not really when the aviation world works particularly well. That has generated a lot of uncertainty, unpredictability and instability, and the way we approach the whole oversight of, and engagement with, the industry, is now very different. For example, I have a fortnightly call with all the airlines and aviation safety directors having that regular engagement pays dividends. HIV and diabetic pilots flying has been a great win for our medical department, and we are still world leaders in that one. Our medical department is doing a fantastic job. Unfortunately, most things we do are not quick wins there are lots of things were working on that take a while to come to fruition. As far as safety and risk are concerned, weve had poor-quality lithium batteries found in aircraft, which present a risk if they get damaged. Theres a lot of work going on around other initiatives for example, focusing on incorrect take-off performance: we still see aircraft taking off without correct data and figures or power sets. We need everybody to understand the criticality of this; people forget that the really important part is making sure that the take-off performance and the loading calculations are correct. So we have a group that discusses how to do that. Everybodys got different systems, so we work together to establish a common database on things like that. We are also coming up with a technological solution that will warn pilots at the low-speed part of the flight if they are not accelerating as fast as they should. Airbus systems can do that on new aircraft and Boeing are working on similar systems, too. Our role here is setting the specification around a take-off monitoring system so the industry can build something based on that. Its getting to that bottom line of what a performancemonitoring system needs to look like. L: How much influence does the CAA have over culture and delivery within airline training departments? GB: When it comes to the regulatory aspect, we have a strange system here in the UK: laws are created by the Department for Transport for implementation by the CAA, but we are also signatories to the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization). We have a set of regulations about what is expected from training departments and we obviously ensure that airlines are compliant with that. Some parts of the world still see ATP, for example, as revolutionary, whereas EASA and ourselves are probably beyond that now and into the next phase around EBT and competency-based training. I look at some other, smaller organisations and theyre not at the same place as the larger airlines. This is not meant as criticism, but our role is about getting everybody to a better place more quickly. We cant tell [airlines] what to do; our goal is to enable them if theyre pushing things forward. There is also an education aspect operators come to us and say you need to change the regulations so we can do this and if we are going to change the regulations, thats probably three years away. So, its very much for the airlines to come up with the initiatives and the ideas about what they want to do and then to say we can get this far, but weve found a block. L: Youve made the case for the CAA being an enabler. Is there a possible conflict of 22 THE LOG Autumn 24 pp14-23 CAA.indd 22 13/11/2024 14:38