Jacko wrote:
Is there really any sense in which the UK could be “part of the EASA system” if we don’t join EFTA upon leaving the EU?
The EASA “system” already has withered to a marginal existence regarding private GA. For the big players, the EASA system is of course a good thing, single sky and all that. I simply cannot see how the UK can just “leave” EASA, as this would kill off all UK based airline companies. Airlines are increasingly getting more international, not less.
LeSving wrote:
For the big players, the EASA system is of course a good thing, single sky and all that. I simply cannot see how the UK can just “leave” EASA, as this would kill off all UK based airline companies. Airlines are increasingly getting more international, not less.
“More international” might arguably mean less like EASA. Especially since the primary source of recommendations for national aviation laws worldwide was started by the US during World War Two, and operates today in Canada. UK, US, Canada and other English speaking countries could do very well in establishing a rational, uniform system of aviation regulation without the wart on the backside represented by EASA and its inward looking politics, language issues and control freak tendency. The US already has a well developed, stable and effective system, in existence for decades, and EASA’s insistence on being different has so far served it poorly 
International does not mean ‘within Europe’, particularly if you invented the world’s common language.
On my bookshelf I have a paperback FAR/AIM – everything in one book, consolidated, authoritative and up to date. The rules for the world’s largest and safest GA fleet and airspace in just over 1,000 pages. What a contrast to the EASA which squirts regulations, amendments, guidance material and acceptable means of compliance into cyberspace like a dog with an upset tummy.
The UK CAA may have lost much of its rule-making capability but US and UK legal systems spring from the same roots, so we could adopt most of the FARs unilaterally with no more ado than correction of their quaint colonial spelling.
Silvaire wrote:
International does not mean ‘within Europe’, particularly if you invented the world’s common language.
International does not mean within North America either. The big flyers internationally are Lufthansa and KLM-Air France with 50-60% of all flights?
Last time I checked, LeSving, the country that invented the world’s international common language and could benefit from that happenstance, particularly when it comes to aviation law, was not in North America.
At times in my life I have felt like the largest individual consumer of airline tickets into and out of Europe, so I’m relatively well aware of the existence of the world both inside and outside of the EU.
The point LeSving made is valid IMO. Regulation of airspace, aircrew and aircraft is 99% about commercial operations and in that case EASA probably serves BA et al very well…. Light, private GA just gets pulled along….(regardless of who runs AOPA)
I don’t see how leaving EASA would kill UK airlines, any more than not being an EASA board member has annihilated Turkish, American or Australian CAT.
In any case, isn’t it the ECAA, CAAA and EMAA bilateral agreements, rather than EASA, which confer reciprocal operating rights so as to create a “single market” in aviation services?
Does EASA actually have a direct role in negotiations with ICAO or does it act through ICAO member states? What does EASA have to do with international aviation except within the small group of EASA member states and their territories?
@Jacko I think there are probably more reasons for airlines to want to stay within EASA than to disentangle…it’s not a matter of whether it would kill them to leave, it’s just that there is no great incentive to leave IMO…
@Silvaire I think you are confusing the old JAA which was a club of individual NAAs….EASA is an aviation authority in it’s own right.
AnthonyQ wrote:
think there are probably more reasons for airlines to want to stay within EASA than to disentangle…it’s not a matter of whether it would kill them to leave, it’s just that there is no great incentive to leave IMO…
If full Brexit goes ahead, the airlines that are left in the UK will simply move their HQ to some EU country, as already mooted by the CEO of EZY. Don’t forget, BA and FR already are legally based outside the EU. FR of course in Ireland and BA in Spain, as they are a part (not sure about the exact legal structure) of IAG. The last thing any airline operating in Europe (or any other business for that matter) would want is to have to comply with yet another set of rules.
