IATA has published yesterday (22 May 2020) a first version of guidance for managing pilot training and licencing during COVID-19 operations.
In the context of COVID crisis, operators and training organizations are facing difficulties to comply with their national regulatory requirements related to flight crew license and qualification validity because both flight and training operations are significantly disturbed.
National Aviation Authorities are globally supporting the approval, for a limited period, of alternative solutions to the traditional licensing and operational requirements. This is possible for operators and training organizations implementing suitable special conditions of operations monitored by their respective Safety Management Systems.
The value of those alternative solutions is clearly to maintain operations when the training capacity is limited, or when the administrative licensing revalidation process is disturbed.
The first aim of this document is to support operators and training organizations manage the risk assessment associated with the regulatory alleviations and to provide best practices for the operational special conditions mitigating the identified risks.
The second aim is to propose medium- and long-term solutions for the operational recovery and for the enhancement of the training effectiveness.
As the national regulatory requirements are drafted based on ICAO standardsand recommended practices published in Annex 1 and Annex 6 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, this document provides global mitigation measures to ICAO standard deviations.
When examples are based on national or regional regulations, the reference to the requirement is mentioned.
The organization’s Safety Management System is responsible to adapt and validate the adequacy of the mitigation measures proposed in this guidance to the operator’s or training organization’s context of operations.
You can download the guidance through IATA website or HERE.
Note: This guidance will be updated as required as further information becomes available.
