This Opinion addresses safety and regulatory coordination issues related to the standardised European rules of the air (SERA). Its main objective is to maintain a high level of safety and environmental performance of the European Union (EU) air navigation system, by ensuring the necessary maintenance and development of the SERA regulatory framework.
To achieve this objective, this Opinion includes proposed amendments to Regulation (EU) No 923/2012 (the SERA Regulation) which:
- ensure synchronisation between the SERA regulatory framework and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) provisions, especially those of ICAO Doc 4444 ‘PANS-ATM’ up to its Amendment 9, particularly in relation to new procedures on standard instrument departures (SID) and standard instrument arrivals (STAR) and other provisions identified as being of a ‘rules-of-the-air’ nature;
- introduce changes to the existing radio communication failure procedure in anticipation of a future amendment to ICAO Annex 2, thus bringing forward in time the related operational benefits;
- remove the Supplement to the Annex to the SERA Regulation, containing the commonly agreed differences to ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs), and amend the requirements on the notification of differences by introducing regulatory references to Regulation (EU) 2018/1139;
- address issues in the implementation of the SERA Regulation as either identified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) through its standardisation activities or raised by stakeholders; and
- remove editorial mistakes and identified consistency issues.
The Opinion also includes minor proposed amendments to Annexes I ‘Part-DEFINITIONS’, IV ‘Part-ATS’ and VI ‘Part-AIS’ to Regulation (EU) 2017/373 (the ATM/ANS Common Requirements Regulation) and to Regulation (EU) No 139/2014 (the Aerodromes Regulation) for consistency purposes.
A safety recommendation (SR) addressed to EASA, related to the inclusion of information with regard to the on-board ballistic parachutes in the flight plan, is also addressed by this proposal.
