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2007 has been an important year for ECA. We have expanded our effectiveness in a number of areas, replaced one member of staff and grown our staff by one, achieved successes in a number of our topics ... and all for the same membership fee!

Flight Time Limitations has been a very difficult topic area for ECA for its entire 16 year existence! 2007 saw the achievement of one of our longstanding aims - to have a minimum set of standards which would apply right across the continent. Although I believe this is a debate which will never be "won", nonetheless this is an important milestone for the profession. ECA, supported strongly by our national Member Associations, also secured a legal provision requiring a medical and scientific review of a rule-set that never underwent a scientific assessment as to its ability to protect against pilot fatigue.

The legislation which establishes the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Regulation 1592/2002, is being revised to expand EASA's remit to include Operations and Personnel Licensing. Given our concerns on safe FTLs, the broader need for strong, safe operational rules and appropriate requirements for pilot licensing; this was a very important file for ECA. This revision sets up the way EASA will work for the foreseeable future, and will also include some directly applicable regulations on the industry. This has been a challenging topic, not least because of the political issues between Commission, EASA, EU Member States and the European Parliament. Despite this, and again strongly supported by our national MAs, we have been successful in securing most of our targets. In particular, that the substantive parts of the FTL rules will be legally binding and that EASA will have to approve any company-specific derogations (rather than the 27 Member States themselves). Also, we succeeded in ensuring that scientific progress needs to be reflected in future EASA rules for pilot licensing.

In May, supported by the European Commission, ECA arranged a Seminar to address the growing issue of Trans-National Airlines (TNA). It will soon be the case that the majority of the 36,400+ professional flight crew represented by ECA will work for companies which have pilot bases in more than one EU nation. In order to remain effective and relevant for our members, ECA and its MAs have aggressively addressed the challenges this provides. At the end of 2006, all our MAs signed a TNA Convention committing them to coordinate their efforts in those companies which are not wholly contained within one country. The seminar brought together many of the pilot representatives affected, other sectors with similar problems, European Parliamentarians, Commission Officials and other social partners to explore what is possible and the changes needed. Although we are leading the debate, there is clearly a long way to go!

These are just some of the highlights. ECA has also worked hard on topics as diverse as Air Traffic Management, Unmanned Aerial Systems, Industrial Trends and with the European Institutions winning influence on many other topics, including:

  • Security; including an ad-hoc system for flight crews to address new threats from liquid explosives
  • the EU-US Aviation Agreement,
  • the revision of the 3rd Package of Aviation Regulation (which created the internal market)
  • the implementation of the Single European Sky policy and development of SESAR
  • social dialogue issues such as Flight Data protection and working time
  • accident investigation and incident reporting directive revisions.

Technical representatives attended an ECA seminar organised at our Brussels office, many MAs invited members of the team to attend conferences and meetings of their Associations and we have supported MAs when requested over many diverse safety, legal and professional difficulties.

A very busy year! As ever, a good part of what we have achieved is a direct result of the efforts of our very professional, small staff in Brussels - led by Philip von Schöppenthau. It never ceases to amaze me how dedicated they are. It has again been an honour to work with a very committed and knowledgeable Executive Board - two of whose members have moved on to other challenges. We wish them well.

Most of all, ECA would not succeed without your - our Member Associations' - support. Thank you, and I wish you, on behalf of the whole team, a very peaceful year end and a successful 2008!