I'm moving to Austria in a month, and coming from an ICAO-compliant country, the process to get my CPL with ATPL subjects, instructor rating etc on to the EASA license looms like a big and expensive mountain.


As I have to do all the theory and ground school again, just in order to write the exams in order to take the checkride, one wonders what the point is of ICAO compliant licenses, and why EASA makes it so expensive and difficult.

Is there any specific reason us mere mortals are now privy to, or is it just the normal case of European bureaucracy to the extreme?

Yeah I agree it's a bit unfair. As I mentioned in another thread, license conversion is as complicated as flying the plane. For one thing though, the EASA exams are significantly more complex than, say, the FAA one. By requiring the exams from every country, I suppose EASA avoids singling out particular countries where the exams are felt to be less onerous.

It's a bit geared towards those with significant experience. If you have the experience requirements to get an ATPL in EASA, there is no need to do the ground school. Just the exams.

If you don't have an ATPL yet, on the other hand, you have to do the whole theory shebang. You are exempt from the flight training itself, however. Just need to do the checkride.

Starlionblue wrote:

Yeah I agree it's a bit unfair. As I mentioned in another thread, license conversion is as complicated as flying the plane. For one thing though, the EASA exams are significantly more complex than, say, the FAA one. By requiring the exams from every country, I suppose EASA avoids singling out particular countries where the exams are felt to be less onerous.

It's a bit geared towards those with significant experience. If you have the experience requirements to get an ATPL in EASA, there is no need to do the ground school. Just the exams.

If you don't have an ATPL yet, on the other hand, you have to do the whole theory shebang. You are exempt from the flight training itself, however. Just need to do the checkride.

Unfortunately I don't have the hours to skip that part. Navigator experience counts, of course, for nothing.
Anyway, the pro's and cons of living in a first world country I guess

SAAFNAV wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

Yeah I agree it's a bit unfair. As I mentioned in another thread, license conversion is as complicated as flying the plane. For one thing though, the EASA exams are significantly more complex than, say, the FAA one. By requiring the exams from every country, I suppose EASA avoids singling out particular countries where the exams are felt to be less onerous.

It's a bit geared towards those with significant experience. If you have the experience requirements to get an ATPL in EASA, there is no need to do the ground school. Just the exams.

If you don't have an ATPL yet, on the other hand, you have to do the whole theory shebang. You are exempt from the flight training itself, however. Just need to do the checkride.

Unfortunately I don't have the hours to skip that part. Navigator experience counts, of course, for nothing.
Anyway, the pro's and cons of living in a first world country I guess

Tell me about it.

The whole license conversion thing can lead to all sorts of silliness.

I did the EASA exams in order to qualify for a job (that I didn't get), then had to do the very same exams again to get my national license here. The local regulator uses the EASA exams (except Air Law), but of course having passed them in EASAland doesn't count.

Because EASA sets higher standards than many other countries, and is unable to verify that 3rd part countries live up to the same standards. It's not like it's a one-way street. Try converting to an Australian, US or South African license from EASA...

There is also an oversupply of pilots in Europe, so there is no interest in making it easier to get it.

VSMUT wrote:

Because EASA sets higher standards than many other countries, and is unable to verify that 3rd part countries live up to the same standards. It's not like it's a one-way street. Try converting to an Australian, US or South African license from EASA...

There is also an oversupply of pilots in Europe, so there is no interest in making it easier to get it.

I would agree. While it sounds and even is silly at times, it really is a diplomatic way of safeguarding against low standard super low wage pilots showing up with whatever countries CPL. And lets be clear here, even countries which position themselves as the best in everything have at times low standards in getting the licence and then try to counteract that by erecting obstacles like arbitrary high minimum hours for flying a jet.

After all, the industry is still conservative and protectionist on all sides of all seven seas.

Interesting points of view, can't say I agree with all of them.

Sometimes one has to wonder if there isn't more job security and career progression driving trains of building organs than there is being a pilot.
But alas, if flying is in your blood...

VSMUT wrote:

Because EASA sets higher standards than many other countries, and is unable to verify that 3rd part countries live up to the same standards. It's not like it's a one-way street. Try converting to an Australian, US or South African license from EASA...

There is also an oversupply of pilots in Europe, so there is no interest in making it easier to get it.

Which is silly. EASA-licensed pilots are just as safe as FAA-licensed pilots. Both agencies regularly talk to each other.

I think these regulations are primarily to discourage pilots from either getting their license abroad or working abroad. There are no safety-related reasons.

SAAFNAV wrote:

Sometimes one has to wonder if there isn't more job security and career progression driving trains of building organs than there is being a pilot.

There is. For the past decade in Europe, the pay is better also. I know many pilots have transitioned to trains in Denmark. The national rail operator even waives all other entry requirements for pilots.

mxaxai wrote:

Which is silly. EASA-licensed pilots are just as safe as FAA-licensed pilots. Both agencies regularly talk to each other.

I think these regulations are primarily to discourage pilots from either getting their license abroad or working abroad. There are no safety-related reasons.

I knew a pilot who was involved with setting up EASA in the 1990s and early 2000s. From what I have been told, the part about not accepting FAA/EASA licenses started in the post-9/11 environment. Most European pilots at the time trained in the US. The then US government implemented some knee-jerk policies on flight training for foreign students in the US that inadvertently hit European students (what exactly it was I have forgotten). When the US was unwilling to adapt the regulation, Europe fired back with new license requirements, effectively killing the flying schools in the US catering to Europeans and boosting their equivalents here.

Starlionblue wrote:

Yeah I agree it's a bit unfair. As I mentioned in another thread, license conversion is as complicated as flying the plane. For one thing though, the EASA exams are significantly more complex than, say, the FAA one. By requiring the exams from every country, I suppose EASA avoids singling out particular countries where the exams are felt to be less onerous.

It's a bit geared towards those with significant experience. If you have the experience requirements to get an ATPL in EASA, there is no need to do the ground school. Just the exams.

If you don't have an ATPL yet, on the other hand, you have to do the whole theory shebang. You are exempt from the flight training itself, however. Just need to do the checkride.

The experience exemption no longer applied. Several ex SAA pilot (South African ATPL) are now having to write all 14 exams. These are guys with 15000-20000hrs and lots of widebody international experience.

VSMUT wrote:

I knew a pilot who was involved with setting up EASA in the 1990s and early 2000s. From what I have been told, the part about not accepting FAA/EASA licenses started in the post-9/11 environment. Most European pilots at the time trained in the US. The then US government implemented some knee-jerk policies on flight training for foreign students in the US that inadvertently hit European students (what exactly it was I have forgotten). When the US was unwilling to adapt the regulation, Europe fired back with new license requirements, effectively killing the flying schools in the US catering to Europeans and boosting their equivalents here.

The only significant changes to training were various security requirements levied by the FAA, then the Homeland Security side of the house, in order to check the backgrounds of those pursuing flight training in the US. While I’m no huge fan of either the FAA or DHS, I don’t think much more than a cursory knowledge of 9/11 would demonstrate that far from knee-jerk, these actions were neither onerously expensive or a true bar to training and justified by then recent events. Considering the thousands of Asian pilots trained in the US for the last 20 years, obviously these weren’t show stopping regulations. Indeed, much of FAA training standards haven’t changed for many decades and the US remains the most permissive flight training location on the planet.

One thing under US law that’s nearly impossible to do is write laws that would target populations based upon race, national origin, religion or sex which is what the exceptions the Euros wanted would have functionally done.

The EASA testing requirements are what they are. Onerous, but in a training program with potentially lower experience requirements, a bulwark of at least didactic knowledge.

I think it’s stupid to require highly experienced immigrant pilots to sit them, but that’s just my assessment.

acecrackshot wrote:

.

One thing under US law that’s nearly impossible to do is write laws that would target populations based upon race, national origin, religion or sex which is what the exceptions the Euros wanted would have functionally done.

One thing which can easily be done, though, is to target based on citizenship and immigration status. Afaik, there were pretty inhumane regulations for "non-US persons" flying

kalvado wrote:

acecrackshot wrote:

.

One thing under US law that’s nearly impossible to do is write laws that would target populations based upon race, national origin, religion or sex which is what the exceptions the Euros wanted would have functionally done.

One thing which can easily be done, though, is to target based on citizenship and immigration status. Afaik, there were pretty inhumane regulations for "non-US persons" flying

“In humane” in what sense? Especially when compared to 3000+ dead, 4 wide body aircraft crashed, and two major centers of America attacked, by hijackers who had taken advantage of heretofore lax and accommodating standards?

acecrackshot wrote:

kalvado wrote:

acecrackshot wrote:

.

One thing under US law that’s nearly impossible to do is write laws that would target populations based upon race, national origin, religion or sex which is what the exceptions the Euros wanted would have functionally done.

One thing which can easily be done, though, is to target based on citizenship and immigration status. Afaik, there were pretty inhumane regulations for "non-US persons" flying

“In humane” in what sense? Especially when compared to 3000+ dead, 4 wide body aircraft crashed, and two major centers of America attacked, by hijackers who had taken advantage of heretofore lax and accommodating standards?

Well, looks like you understand EASA move

kalvado wrote:

acecrackshot wrote:

kalvado wrote:

One thing which can easily be done, though, is to target based on citizenship and immigration status. Afaik, there were pretty inhumane regulations for "non-US persons" flying

“In humane” in what sense? Especially when compared to 3000+ dead, 4 wide body aircraft crashed, and two major centers of America attacked, by hijackers who had taken advantage of heretofore lax and accommodating standards?

Well, looks like you understand EASA move

Touché!

The Euro way of tackling hard problems is usually different than the US one. Not better or worse, just different.

That said...The challenge of EASA training predated 9/11, and probably represents, as I mentioned earlier in my judgement a bit of goal keeping to restrict supply of pilots, and a reflection of a different training philosophy (didactic vs. practical) on the Continent vs. North America. Again, I don’t judge it as bad or good in a moral sense. Like all policies, it’s got strengths and weaknesses.

No one certainly imagined that American hospitality would have been ruthlessly exploited by the 9/11 hijackers, despite for example our 1980s experiences in the Middle East and the case story of AF8969. To quote Churchill, “Americans will invariably select the right option, after exhausting all others.”