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Brexit and general aviation, UK leaving EASA, etc (merged)

Curious about my Company, the Cargologic Air, the Great British Cargo Airline. Until now, there was no any official communication about our licenses. Company employs Spansih, Dutch, German, French, Greek, Hungarian, Slovenian, license holders….Aircraft are G-registered 747s…

You have no issue, @Zsoszu, because the State of Registry (the UK) will accept UK-issued licenses for ever, for a G-reg, and has stated it will accept EASA licenses for two more years at least.

It is the other way round that is a potential problem: the EU is not offering a similar extension. They are going for the nuclear button on brexit date.

Call it paranoia but in choosing between a modest downside and a big downside of unknown probability, doing nothing to protect myself against the latter appears increasingly unattractive.

It’s a reasonable position, if it is easy. Is there any downside? You can fly a G-reg on an IAA license, for the stated 2 year extension period, at least.

On past record, in case of a no prior deal, I would expect a last minute announcement from the IAA, straightening out the situation…

Also, there is no such thing as a “no deal brexit”. There will have to be deals done at that point, for pragmatic reasons e.g. to avoid large scale grounding of European airliners because so many pilots have UK issued licenses. Same goes for trade, and 1000 other things, but that is not an aviation topic A “no deal brexit” is merely a “no prior deal brexit”. Brussels does not want this outcome, for obvious tactical reasons.

A more likely scenario would be the EU extending the March deadline. But the Brussels ban on individual negotiations between the UK and other countries and their agencies would continue, so there would be no improvement in the clarity.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
On past record, in case of a no prior deal, I would expect a last minute announcement from the IAA, straightening out the situation…

This will be totally dictated by instructions from EASA, the IAA is unlikely to have any discretion at all. A last-minute UK-EU deal is of course possible, or perhaps even likely, but the negotiating style of EU bodies is to let things go to the last possible minute before cutting a deal. Ask the huge range of businesses that are being told to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Tendentious propaganda utterances from both sides. We are all pawns being used in a fractious geopolitical divorce. My current plan is to prepare for the worst.

Bluebeard
EIKH, Ireland

This will be totally dictated by instructions from EASA, the IAA is unlikely to have any discretion at all.

I agree; this will be the position all the time that the brexit process is proceeding. But if the deadline passes, and no extension is agreed, then each individual EU country will have a big problem, of which all the UK-licensed airline pilots will be just one small part, and they will all be forced to look after their own interests.

I would imagine that the EU, needing to keep the bloc together politically, would then come out with some pan-EU concessions, and there must be a plan for this.

Bear in mind that irrespective of treaties, each country has total sovereignity over its own airspace and has the power, under its ICAO seat, to grant whatever privileges are needed.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I just read in a der Spiegel article on Brexit that the UK government is considering using a “small airport” near Dover as a parking space for HGVs / lorries in case of a hard Brexit to deal with the inevitable traffic disruption in case of hard Brexit with custom controls at Dover port.
Which airport could they mean? Lydd?

Last Edited by MedEwok at 09 Dec 11:15
Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Manston airport. It is still operational but helicopters only. It is not a “small” airport; it is big enough for Concorde It used to be RAF, many years ago.

After some issues at the other end of the channel tunnel, which caused huge tailbacks on the motorway leading to the tunnel, the runway was converted to a lorry park at least a couple of years ago; I have a photo somewhere. They painted lorry-sized rectangles on it and installed some obstructions (hard to see from the air) which would make it unusable for aircraft.

Photo before closure

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Timothy wrote:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-norway-model-brexit-2018-4

After reading the article, this doesn’t seem like a very likely event, and too little time to do it in any case. It would make it easy for GA though

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Following the latest news that Brexit can be unilaterally cancelled by the UK (the article 50 notification can simply be revoked, the European Court of justice ruled today), I think Brexit might not happen after all. May seems almost certain to lose the upcoming Commons vote on the agreement to leave the EU, but there will be no better agreement on offer (and certainly not on time by the end of March 2019), and that would leave the status quo ante as the only sensible alternative. The overwhelming majority of MPs don’t seem to want hard Brexit.

Of course this still does not rule out the “Norway solution” of the UK simply joining EFTA, possibly the best solution with regards to GA, even better than Remain perhaps if the UK would have to join Schengen.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Please keep this aviation related, and read any mainland European media slants on it with great caution

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Okay, let’s say we ignore everything about Brexit that doesn’t strictly have to do with aviation, what would be the best outcome for UK pilots who want to travel to “the continent” after 29th of March 2019? Or for mainland EU pilots wanting to travel to the UK?

Because I think the answer might be neither hard Brexit nor Remain with the status quo (Which means customs&immigration, GAR etc.). Of course this is highly hypothetical because everyone has interests apart from aviation that are strongly affected by the outcome, but it still is interesting.

What about you, @Peter , purely from a pilot’s perspective, which kind of Brexit would you prefer (ignoring all your other thoughts about the topic)?

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

MedEwok wrote:

Okay, let’s say we ignore everything about Brexit that doesn’t strictly have to do with aviation, what would be the best outcome for UK pilots who want to travel to “the continent” after 29th of March 2019? Or for mainland EU pilots wanting to travel to the UK?

This is funny. The UK is already outside Schengen. After 29th of March it will also be outside the customs union, which can prove to be a much more cumbersome experience from a practical point of view, at least initially. The UK will have to build up customs offices etc from scratch, and that’s only one side of the picture. EU (France, Belgium, Netherlands and Ireland) will have to do the same. Customs and immigration are two different things, handled by separate departments, separate people.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway
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