Despite having had 18 months to prepare for the introduction of the new EU-OPS FTL rules (Subpart Q), many EU Member States - and a large number of their airlines - missed the deadline of 16 July, and many airlines struggled to meet the new FTL requirements on time. Some countries, like the Netherlands or Denmark requested formal temporary exemptions to ensure their operators are not infringing EU law, while other Member States simply did not check on their operators. However, by mid-2009, most Member States seem to be compliant with the new EU-OPS rules on FTL.

At the same time, several EU Member States took the risk of endangering flight safety by replacing their previously higher national safety standards by the lower EU-OPS minimum. This goes against the objective of the Regulation and the "non-regression" principle, which aim at higher safety standards, not lower ones.

For example, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, chose to replace their state-of-the-art "FTL Points System" by EU-OPS Subpart Q, and did so without consulting their national pilot associations. ECA pilot safety experts from these countries consider that on several accounts, the new EU-OPS based Scandinavian FTL rules provide for less safety protection that the previous Points System.

On the other side there is also best practice. For example, the United Kingdom, which has the most advanced state-of-the-art FTL scheme in Europe, "CAP 371". The UK chose to respect the EU-OPS Regulation's "non-regression" clause, i.e. not to use EU-OPS as a pretext to "regress" on safety levels. Instead, it maintains its CAP 371-based safety levels, and had involved all stakeholders in this decision.

Another positive example is Spain where the national authorities set up a formal working group - involving all aviation stakeholders - to prepare and upgrade their out-dated FTL legislation. They used EU-OPS as a basis, improving it in many areas through national legislation, firmly establishing the principle of non-regression. Thereby the national safety standards override EU-OPS wherever they provide for a higher safety level. The formal publication of the Spanish decree is still awaited, but the principle is already applied for the actual operations.

In most Member States, safety levels are expected to remain more or less the same or to increase with the transposition of EU-OPS into national law. This is the overall result of an ECA poll among its national Member Associations. However, the intransparent process and risk of safety regression in a number of EU countries give raise for concern.

Another trend is the gradual downgrading of safety levels within the framework of Collective Labour Agreements (CLAs) at company level. In many countries, CLAs provide for more advanced FTL provisions than the national laws or EU-OPS. Increasing competitive pressure, combined with the existence of an EU-wide FTL standard which is below most CLAs, encourages many companies to dismantle the more protective CLA provisions and to move towards the lower EU minimum. If this trend continues in future, aviation safety levels risk to suffer.