Thread by @GuyG_Boffin

1/19 The UK/EU deal from an aeronautical perspective. I’m not a diplomat (just ask anybody I’ve ever worked with!), but hold prof pilot qualifications in UK, EU and USA, prof engineer qualifications in UK and EU + aviation PhD. Hopefully gives me some perspective.

2/19 The UK government & EU summaries on deal are vague and contain no cross-referencing, so the reader has to find material in main document for themselves. This offends my inner academic but charitably is just lack of time, not a desire to obscure !??

3/19 Whilst the withdrawal agreement was very vague about aviation, this document is much more detailed. This separates air transport from most other forms of aviation. Pp74-76 separate out most aviation activities which is not transport of pax or cargo, inc wet lease.

4/19 pp 221+ cover air transport. Lots of detail, here’s some highlights. P223 neatly enshrines 1st-4th freedom rights for all UK & EU carriers (if unfamiliar with those try here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_… ) + 5th freedom for cargo only.

5/19 P224 is crucial, it allows individual permissions for unscheduled cabotage (charter cargo & pax transport of UK aircraft in EU or vice-versa), excludes scheduled cabotage (regular routes) as not in agreement, but doesn’t explicitly prohibit it. Subcontracting is fine.

6/19 Code sharing, so long as pax are informed, is also fine (p225). Dry leasing seems fine, wet leasing only for short term expediency if cross-border (p232, some handy definitions here tinyurl.com/y9t97ge4).

7/19 pp232-234 gives us tax-free onboard duty free, a/c spares, fuels, lubricants, ground equipment, onboard printed matter.

8/19 pp235+ covers airworthiness (p.s. I wrote a book on this, Initial Airworthiness, now in 2nd edn, it’s very good). Clear mutual recognition of ICAO compliance CofA etc. with mechanism for meeting over safety concerns. Normal stuff about ramp checks and exclusions.

9/19 pp236ish requires full co-operation on aviation security. P238 requires good co-operation on air traffic control. P238 requires co-operation and consultation on consumer protection. Note the tiering of levels of co-operation here.

10/19 pp240+ : aerospace industry matters, encouraging wide scale co-operation. Verbatim: “Article AVSAF.4: General obligations 1. Each Party shall accept findings of compliance made and certificates issued by the other Party's competent authorities or approved organisations”

11/19 This is really important, as it ensures automatic CAA/EASA mutual approvals, really important to our industry. However, next para does not automatically accept each others standards – that will require separate negotiation. Implication?...

12/19 presumably CAA can certify against CS codes, EASA can certify against BCARs, but then need not automatically accept each others standards, only competence to assess against any standard. This is workable so long as standards stay broadly converged, which they should.

13/19 anyhow, with all standards needing to be declared to ICAO, even mild divergence of standards should be easily manageable by a competent industry, as we do now with use of FAA & legacy UK standards.

14/19 AVSAF.6 (p242) permits either to escalate concerns about safety of aviation products, in consultation with the other. Following paras require associated information sharing, with appropriate confidentiality clauses. Neither may use airworthiness fees to obstruct trade.

15/19 pp786-796 contains very necessary requirements for mutual recognition of aerospace design and manufacturing approvals. This is very important to the whole European (EU and non-EU) industries.

16/19 That was the meat, what other snippets are there? Interested to note that hijacking is now defined as “unlawful seizure of aircraft, ships or spacecraft”. P797 has some sensible requirements for export CofA in transferring a/c between countries, and for new products.

17/19 Now, what is missing? There are no provisions for mutuality of personnel licencing, for pilots, maintainers, cabin crew or other aviation professionals. No provision (or prohibition) for use of EGNOS for navigation of aircraft outside EU.

18/19 My opinion? This is pretty good and workable for UK & EU aerospace and airline industries. A further agreement on personnel licencing & training would a good idea, and also on use of precision GPS systems. Well done @DavidGHFrost @UK_CAA @EASA .

19/19 However we also need to make sure that both the EU and UK are always sufficiently competent to manage our parts of the bargain, ideally without burying our industries under red tape – which is a very real risk.

A p.s. here. There is reference to licence recognition, but I read this as e.g. UK accepting an EU licenced pilot in an EU registered aeroplane. I couldn't see anything enabling an EU licenced pilot to fly a UK registered aeroplane.

Those permissions will need to be elsewhere.