Pilots and operators of aircraft on the N-register continue to be the meat in the sandwich as Europe and America attempt to resolve trade issues, and the future does not look promising. EASA’s proposals to hamstring the N-register operator in Europe have been put back to 2014 and are now said to be subject to bilateral negotiations which may or may not produce a workable compromise – and the evidence of recent history indicates that no user-friendly solution will be found. In fact, it seems we have won a two-year grace period before the boot goes in.

New EASA proposals on maintenance of third country aircraft in Europe – they’re attacking this issue on multiple fronts – do not seem to be as onerous as they might have been. For commercial operators of non-complex types EASA is proposing that a maintenance programme be agreed between the operator and the maintainer. The maintainer can either agree the programme with the state of registry, or be accredited by EASA as a CAMO(T) to work on third country aircraft.
While this does not pose insurmountable problems, there are questions left hanging. No provision is specified for aircraft whose type certificate is not accepted by EASA. An N-registered aircraft which is forced to accept an EASA directive, say on a wing spar modification, will invalidate its FAA registration by doing so. What then? And operators of American flight schools teaching Europeans will be required to conform to European maintenance regulations, not those of the FAA, on American soil. Will the Americans accept this? And will it be just another level of bureaucracy, or a game-stopper?

Malta is planning an aircraft registry which could take advantage of EASA’s third-country crackdown by offering a lower-cost haven, particularly for business jets. Up to now Malta has instructed its GA owners and pilots to operate their aircraft on the N-register and conform to FAA regulation. EASA will however make this impossible, and Malta has woken up to the possibility of challenging the Isle of Man as a registry of choice for the business operator. The Isle of Man, nominally not part of the United Kingdom, set up the M-registry two years ago, and while the registry is open only to aircraft over five tonnes for owners who have business connections on the island, the Maltese aim to cast their net somewhat wider.

Pilots in Italy have been driven to extreme measures by new bureaucratic demands and have overstepped the mark in their frustration. Members of Treviso Aero Club found the entry to their club barred by airport management, who insisted that henceforth they could get in only by passing through the passenger security checks at the airline terminal, and that no-one who did not have a pilot’s licence, whether relatives, passengers, secretaries at the Club or even mechanics, would be allowed in. Tempers boiled over, and the enraged club members erected a sign above the entrance conveying exactly what they thought of their treatment. Modelled on the ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign above the entrance to Nazi concentration camps, it said: ‘Fliegen Macht Frei’.
Scandal ensued, with the President of the Italian CAA sending a formal statement to the media ordering the club to immediately remove the sign. The local Jewish community said the sign was an “insult to the Holocaust” and the police authority began an investigation into the club’s legal position. AOPA Italy countered with a press release saying: “While the comparison between the Holocaust and the airport authority is exaggerated, we do not think there was any intention to insult anyone, and the initiative of the airport authority was totally mindless and illegal.” The statement was signed by the former President of AOPA Italy Massimo Levi, whose family suffered greatly during the Nazi onslaught on the Jews.
Massimo Levi says: “The story made the front page of most national newspapers and TV news bulletins, but luckily, TV images did not show only the contested sign, they also showed pilots surrounded by a ‘concertina’ of wire netting very similar to the ones we can see on history books placed around concentration camps.”
The sign was removed, and after a week the Treviso police commander exonerated the club President from all accusations, and the airport authority quietly removed all the obstacles.
Massimo says: “It was done too quietly, in our opinion. The question remains – do we really have to go on newspapers’ front pages to obtain what is normally recognised as a basic right, the right to practice the sport we enjoy or the right to travel the way we choose?”