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What country to move your EASA PPL to?

I wonder what country would be best to move your EASA PPL in future?
As UK is leaving EU and probably EASA, it will become a third country.

Most countries have pro and cons.
France – you need to speak French
Germany – LBA is too bureaucratic and violates some EASA rules
Austria – Seems very straightforward, but expensive.
Czech Republic – ?
Belgium – ?

United Kingdom

It is far from clear that the UK will be leaving EASA. When asked that question last week, Sally Evans, the head of the medical section of the UK CAA, said that, at the moment, they simply don’t know.

EGCJ, United Kingdom

I thought you could only move an EASA licence to your country of residence?

I highlight move, as I believe you can get the original one in a country other than your home country, but if you want to move it, I understood you could only move it to your country of residence. This certainly used to be the case under JAR….maybe changed now.

Last Edited by dublinpilot at 29 Mar 19:25
EIWT Weston, Ireland

Wasn’t there a rule that the license had to be issued by the country holding your AME medical records? The UK CAA said it was done to try to stop “medical tourism”. Whether this was implemented I don’t know.

Also on the morning after the Brexit vote the UK CAA put a statement on their website – we had another thread on this – saying they will stay in EASA. Here. It makes sense for them to stay within EASA, but of course they can do really useful stuff like

  • allowing one to fly EASA aircraft on the national PPL and the NPPL; currently this is to be killed by EASA April 2018
  • allowing any G-reg to be flown on any ICAO PPL; this was allowed for decades but IIRC was killed by EASA c. 2012 for EASA aircraft
  • allowing the IMC Rating to continue; also due to be killed by EASA in 2019

All within UK airspace, or outside EASA airspace.

Maybe @frank knows?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I think moving your licence to another EASA state is permitted. All the Ryanair pilots have Irish licences, the majority of whom are not Irish, do not live in Ireland and almost certainly qualified outside the country.

EGTT, The London FIR

The original assumption is far from a certainty.

Being part of the EU and being part of EASA are two different things, and I don’t see why Brexit would mean exit from EASA and certainly not automatically.

Switzerland is not part of the EU, but is part of EASA. I’m not sure of the right legal terminology, but the structure is something along the lines of a contract between Switzerland and EASA with certain T&C. One of those T&C is that Switzerland will follow EU law governing EASA (e.g. COMMISSION REGULATION EC No 216-2008 and COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 800/2013 of 14 August 2013, SERA, etc) as well as EASA’s own regulations.

These EU regulations are probably one thing that would need to be somehow “transferred” as part of Brexit, or dropped entirely and simply replaced with a new contract between the UK and EASA similar to the Swiss one….. in which case the UK could define their own contract with specific exemptions as mentioned above.

Last Edited by chflyer at 29 Mar 20:19
LSZK, Switzerland

Indeed, and, as with Brexit itself, the UK CAA would be dumb to show its hand to anybody who phones them up

Regarding Ryanair, these AOC ops get a permission to do lots of things as a part of the AOC acceptance. For example Ryanair could operate an N-reg 737. It would be subject to pilots having both FAA and EASA papers.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

dublinpilot wrote:

I thought you could only move an EASA licence to your country of residence?

No, you can move to any country. There are Swedish pilots who have moved to Danish licenses because the fees charged by the Danish CAA are much lower than what the Swedish CAA charges.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

chflyer wrote:

One of those T&C is that Switzerland will follow EU law governing EASA (e.g. COMMISSION REGULATION EC No 216-2008 and COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 800/2013 of 14 August 2013, SERA, etc) as well as EASA’s own regulations.

That is the problem. Switzerland agrees to be under juristiction of the EU court for aviation and other things. UK has declined that, so it will be much harder to get to a contract.

Peter wrote:

Wasn’t there a rule that the license had to be issued by the country holding your AME medical records?

That is correct, the license country holds your medical records, but you can go to any AME in EASA-land.

United Kingdom

So, the last AME you visited becomes the country holding your medical records? Can you nominate that country, or do you have to have to get a medical there?

When I was looking at the FAA IR to JAA IR conversion back in 2011, I seriously looked at the Greek route at LGKV. I would have done it in a DA42 and come out with a SEP PPL/IR and a MEP PPL/IR and – during the stay there – my country of residence would have been temporarily changed to Greece But I don’t recall anybody saying I would need to visit a Greek AME.

Switzerland agrees to be under juristiction of the EU court for aviation and other things. UK has declined that, so it will be much harder to get to a contract.

IMHO a key difference is that Switzerland had its back to the wall, due to being the “confidential banking” centre for the known universe They had to pay a very high price for getting zero tariffs on exports to the EU. The UK doesn’t have that problem and this is why the final deal is not likely to resemble Switzerland, or Norway for that matter.

As UK is leaving EU and probably EASA, it will become a third country.

Why would that matter if you live in the UK?

Post-Brexit, anybody flying an N-reg for example will – as things are written currently – be at an advantage because the April 2019 “N-reg screwing” deadline should become immaterial.

If you hold a license issued by the country of aircraft reg, you have worldwide privileges, noncommercial. Nowhere in Europe is this disputed.

Does any European country have long term parking limits on Swiss or Norwegian regs? AFAIK Denmark and Norway prohibit foreign regs long term parking but do they block Swiss reg too? Does Denmark ban Norwegian reg? @LeSving might know.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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