Aviation by nature operates across borders. Member States and their competent authorities, therefore need to work together. Such cooperation between competent authorities ensures that aviation activities of organisations/persons active in one Member States, but certified by the competent authority of another Member State, are properly overseen. It also ensures that safety information is not only transferred to the competent authority that has certified the airline or the pilot, but that this information is included into the oversight programme. Today, the benefits of the European common aviation market mean that the aviation activity is often performed outside the Member States that issued the certificate. In some cases, the activity is performed exclusively outside the territory of the authority that issued the certificate.
While cooperative oversight has clear advantages in terms of exchange of information between competent authorities, it also triggers a number of questions regarding the practical implications for authorities and the necessary tools that need to be in place.
Four competent authorities of the Czech Republic, France, Norway and the UK agreed to participate in a trial project on cooperative oversight, involving each authority’s inspecting staff and airlines to highlight the enablers of and barriers to cooperative oversight.
This activity report provides detailed information on the activities performed between those four competent authorities. The report makes several recommendations to EASA and authorities for effective implementation of cooperative oversight.