It took the Agency until Sept. 2009 – i.e. 1 year after the Moebus Report was available – to convene a stakeholder meeting to hold “preliminary discussions”. At this meeting pilot and cabin crew representatives stressed the need for science-based FTL rules, in line with EU and ICAO legal obligations. However, the airline representatives stated that new fatigue rules are not a priority. They announced that they reject anything that would change today’s fatigue rules – except if it resulted in more flexibility. (see joint airlines’ position)

The airline’s opposition to rule changes that might result in cost increases made work in the OPS.055 working group rather difficult (the group comprised 5 airline representatives, 5 air crew experts, 5 National Authority representatives, EASA staff, a Chairman, and one observer from the EU Commission). After 10 meetings of this group and 3 meetings of a subgroup (on the related Regulatory Impact Assessment), the participants could find consensus on only very few issues.

As a result, the EASA proposal for FTL rules – issued on 20 Dec. 2010 in the form of a ‘Notice of Proposed Amendment” (NPA) – is totally inadequate to protect passengers against the safety risks generated by air crew fatigue. In its current form the NPA

• is immature, disregards decades of scientific and medical evidence, is shaped around the airlines’ commercial interest, and well below the standard set by the proposal from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which had been presented in mid-Sept. 2010 (see “America Acts on Pilot Fatigue”);

• will reduce passengers’ safety standards in many EU countries, as it sets pilot fatigue rules well below the FTL safety standards currently applied in countries such as the UK, Spain and others;

• will damage EASA’s and the European Commission’s reputation as credible safety regulators, and harm the EU’s international reputation as a safety-oriented region.

This NPA should therefore not have been published before a thorough review by scientists and FTL experts had been carried out (as requested by ECA but rejected by EASA and the Commission), as well as a systematic benchmarking against the US FAA proposal and national FTL rules in place in EU Member States.

If not changed and put on a solid scientific basis, this NPA will reduce aviation safety levels in Europe to the detriment of the travelling public. ECA therefore rejects the NPA. It calls on the EU Institutions to deliver safety-oriented and science-based FTL rules, free from social and commercial considerations. (see Press Release)

- Link to EASA NPA on FTL rules (incl. related documents)

Almost 50.000 comments were received from stakeholders – incl. many pilots – within only 3 months. This is an indicator about the quality of EASA’s proposal, and a record in the Agency’s own history of rulemaking (see: "Flight Time Limitations: 3 Words – 50.000 Comments" )

Given this amount of comments, EASA’s initial timetable for finalising its proposal has been delayed. The expected timeline is now: EASA-internal work and assessment of the NPA comments received – supported by the OPS.055 Comment Review Group (7 meetings from April-Nov. 2011), followed by the publication of the Comment Review Document (mid-January 2012) and 2 months stakeholder consultation. Thereafter, EASA will work inhouse on a formal final EASA proposal (“Opinion”) to be published in June 2012. EU Commission, Member States and EU Parliament will then further revise it (“Comitology”) until end 2012/early 2013. Expected entry into force: April 2013. Effective application expected for end 2014.