Brussels, 02/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 2 July, 22 airline operators received the first single air safety authorisations from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This is the first application of the new regulation adopted by the European Commission in 2014.
The Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc attended the authorisation signing ceremony at the Belgian airport of Zaventem, at which the Executive Director of EASA, Patrick Ky, also participated. The Commissioner stated: “The new safety authorisation scheme…will take the safety of Europeans one step further by ensuring that third country operators flying to Europe match the highest safety standards. The 'one-stop-shop' approach means cutting red-tape and reducing administrative costs for airlines”.
In April 2014, the European Commission adopted a new TCO (“Third Country Operators”) regulation to introduce single authorisation throughout the EU, which would be awarded by EASA on behalf of the Commission. The goal was to put an end to administrative and legal fragmentation that until then prevailed in the EU 28 and which would subsequently help reduce insecurity and surcharges.
From November 2016, any airline operator based outside the EU will have to obtain this authorisation, even if it is already operating in European airspace. The evaluation criteria used will be those decided by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which is a United Nations body. A source close to EASA explained to EUROPE that these criteria are, however, slightly below EU standards imposed on European carriers.
Only authorisation relating to security will be decided at a European level, while commercial authorisation will still be governed by bilateral agreements. In this perspective, the Commission would like in the future for the latter to be negotiated also at European level, according to one European source. This is a complex subject because there are still controversial points with regard to unfair competition between European and third country airline operators.
The TCO comes as a complement to the SAFA programme (“Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft”), which involves random inspections organised by member states and the blacklist of foreign airline operators drawn up by the Commission.
The EASA Executive Director explained: “A total of 700 foreign air carriers from more than 100 countries have already applied to be authorised to fly in the European Union”. The next raft of authorisations will take place in 2016. (Pascal Hansens)