Peter wrote:
Does anyone (@bookworm? ) know whether a piece of text here is genuine?
Would be quite “interesting” indeed: This statement has been online for at least 4 days now and is still the only reference to such an agreement that can be found on the web.
The fact that this only reference has been posted on the site of a business that has strong and immediate business interest in such a treaty being true, doesn’t help credibility. It actually feels more like someone trying to boost a business by promoting fake news…
Content wise it would actually be extremely noticeable that such an agreement should not only be made in times where every government on earth has something different in mind. It is claimed to happen also during a period where even the existing BASA between EASA and FAA is put under massive stress. due to the announcement of the EASA not to accept any FAA recertification of the 737Max without own investigations.
Obviously to any observer of the US-EU political scene, such a concession would be dynamite. Dynamite underneath the EASA HQ.
It would mean that the European airline pilot training business (let’s forget about the current death of the airline industry due to the virus) would be finished because most of its clients are youngsters who can easily go to the US for training. And then come back to Europe to convert.
Maybe, maybe not… There are plenty of US based schools that train for EASA ratings right now, and the EU based ones are chasing prospective students away with sticks and stones. Or were, not that long ago.
And the US based training providers / training system wasn’t too overstaffed either.
The US schools can’t do the “frozen ATPL” i.e. the CPL/IR and the 14 exams.
This is the “big training business package” which the clients are throwing 80-100k at.
Specifically they could never (except possibly for specific airline schools many years ago; I never heard of this though) do the JAA/EASA IR.
I know some could do the CPL; I saw it on TV many years ago. But they may have been “captive” schools run by one European airline. I vaguely recall Lufthansa were running some school in Arizona, maybe. But the CPL doesn’t have much “meat” in it; it is just some VFR flying with an instructor. The real moneymaker for the Euro FTO industry is the ME IR, and the ground school delivery.
Europe maintains this restrictive practice carefully so that only very smart and clued-up people (a tiny % of airline pilot cadets) can go the DIY route. And that route would be immensely helped by doing the ME PPL and ME IR in the US, and whether you can do the CPL there as well doesn’t really matter much in the wider picture.
Of course I haven’t read into it in detail, but a casual glance at their FAQ says: All flight training, ground training and skill tests are conducted in Florida. No conversion needed. Upon completion, you will receive your EASA ATP license (frozen) including all FAA Pilot certificates PPL, IR, CPL, Multi Engine.
Peter wrote:
I have emailed the contact listed in the PDF below
Thanks for posting this PDF, Peter … I was looking for this for a while. What I find interesting, my understanding was always that you don’t need 50h of IFR PIC anymore to convert FAA > EASA. After reading this text (which I might have misunderstood), it appears to me that you need those 50h PIC IFR after getting the FAA IR anyway, also after revision. Weird.
That is amazing, tmo. Thanks for posting it! It sounds like a German FTO managed to get an approval, for the first time in decades.
However, it merely reduces the flying cost a bit. The FAA route followed by a conversion – as that link claims is going to be possible – would reduce it significantly. It would eliminate most of the exams. You do 3 exams (PPL, CPL and IR) instead of 14.
Peter wrote:
It would mean that the European airline pilot training business (let’s forget about the current death of the airline industry due to the virus) would be finished because most of its clients are youngsters who can easily go to the US for training. And then come back to Europe to convert.
This is an extremely unattractive rout for those who want to fly airline: We must not forget that in Europe one can fly in an airline Cockpit with CPL (and an ATPL theory exam) while in the US you need an ATPL. Before you have an US ATPL to convert you need lots of hours (incl. MET Hours).
As long as EASA allows European Airlines to fly with CPL (+ATPL theory) the US route is only interesting for those who have enough money (and bad enough pilot skills) to buy the time for the US-ATPL in pay2flight model and would not get a job in Europe.
AIUI, if the claimed conversion existed, you could
No need for a US ATP which, as you say, is hard work now.
An ICAO ATPL → EASA ATPL direct conversion is not applicable anyway. It was (no idea if this is still current) available to pilots with 2500hrs on a Part 25 aircraft. For a few years in the early days of JAA, Ireland converted US ATPs to JAA ATPLs directly, but Brussels stopped that. Other routes existed via Hungary.
* obviously the route described would be slagged off all over European social media, by FTO instructors posting under nicknames (visit the Professional Pilots section of any aviation forum and count ’em; easy to spot from joining dates c. 1999/2000 and 5 digit post counts), all claiming that those doing the “cheat route” in [insert US / Greece / Spain / etc] will never get an airline job 
Peter, a US commercial pilot certificate is unnecessary.
Appendix 3 to Part-FCL, point E.1:
Before commencing a CPL(A) modular course an applicant shall be the holder of a PPL(A) issued in accordance with Annex 1 to the Chicago Convention.
