Standardised European Rules of the Air

[Nick Allen]

John, A good start might be here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/e ... mittees.do
And lo, the head of the Transport and Tourism committee is a Brit. Suggest a quick introductory email to him might be a useful opening shot as in the end the Eurocontrol proposals have to go through the European Parliament.

Edited to add: Oh, and it might be interesting to ask him why the European Parliament has gone to Eurocontrol for these rules of the air, rather than to its own aviation safety agency, EASA (in which, for its faults, we as GA do have a voice). It might also be worth pointing out to him that, basically, Eurocontrol has never had much interest in, or knowledge of, what we might loosely term light aviation...

[Trevor Lyons]

A good start might be here: ... And lo, the head of the Transport and Tourism committee is a Brit.

When contacting "your MEP", it is worth noting that there is no such thing! Originally MEPs were voted for on a constituency basis; and my former local MEP was quite helpful. However, under the pretence of a "fairer" system, Tony Blair introduced arguably the worst form of proportional representation whereby you vote for a party; and then the party selects the candidate(s) from a list in the order the party (rather than the voter) wants. It is now impossible to vote for a specific candidate; and once voted in, UK MEPs have no constituency as such and thus have no specific responsibility to represent "constituents". However, you can approach as many of "your" MEPs as you like, and with a bit of luck, at least one will respond.

It is worth noting that one can approach the Commission itself, to discuss their proposals. I have always been more impressed by the Commission than by the European Parliament; but on the other hand, it is the Commission that is making these ruddy proposals, and one needs to find someone to fight them!

For those unaware of how the Council of Ministers works, a quick outline: "The Commission proposes, & the Council disposes". When a particular legislative proposal, say, on aviation, is made by the Commission (and after the various Committees have been consulted), a Council is convened to discuss and vote on the issue. This means that 27, say, aviation ministers then whizz up to Brussels for a pleasant junket. Within the Council there is the "COREPER" - the Committee of Permanent Representatives- who are national civil servants permanently in Brussels to prepare the paperwork for the visits of their political superiors.

[Nigel Hitchman]

Oh dear, this sounds like a right mess. And worst of all this Brit who is the head of Transport and tourism, Brian Simpson, is the guy who has been leading the charge to tear up the UK flight time limitations scheme, which regulates the time commercial pilots can work for, based on scientific safety studies and replace it with a made up scheme with no scientific basis, allowing pilots to be worked into the ground with no care of safety, but no doubt increasing the profits of the likes of Mr O'Leary (who's airline doesnt have to comply with the UK limits anyway, but I guess the Irish limits would be stricter than what Simpson wants)
This guy was a school teacher, and councillor before becoming a politician, seems to know a lot about trains (has shares in many railway preservation groups- which is great and to be applauded, but no relevance to aviation)

Anyway, better get on with drafting my response!

[Bill Scott]

Bill,

you asked when we get a decision on Norwich. Having reviewed the responses, Norwith Airport invited the LAA to visit them to discuss their revised proposal. We said before agreeing to incur yet more expense we would like to know how the proposal had changed but in their reply Norwich avoided answering the question. We therefore said we would not go to Norwich on that basis but if they wanted to come to us they could.

They phoned last week and are looking at a date in May to visit the LAA and BGA to set out their stall. We shall see.................

John

Any news John? I'm sure I saw a post somewhere on this interweb thingumy saying that the airspace grab proposal had been shelved until such time as Norwich actually has traffic.

[John Brady]

To avoid thread drift please see post on Norwich CAS

[John Brady]

Eurocontrol have just issued their consideration of the consultation responses in preparation for a seminar on 3 Jun at which I will represent the RAeC (and therefore the LAA etc). I cannot post the document here (321 pages) and I doubt you would want to wade through it anyway. We expect to have a fairly common view with the UK CAA so should have a national position.

Most consultation responses have been rejected and we will want to argue many of those but on some they have a valid point.

I will let you know how we get on.

John

[Bill Scott]

To avoid thread drift please see post on Norwich CAS

Apologies, didn't find the other thread.

Withdraws, humiliated and crestfallen.