HL Deb 01 February 2000 vol 609 cc17-8WA
Lord Tebbit

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What action they will take to protect the interests of British commercial pilots aged over 60 years currently prohibited from flying over or into France in command of public transport aircraft. [HL781]

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston

The Government have raised this matter both directly with the French authorities and within the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) and will continue to seek a resolution of the problem.

Under Council Regulation 3922/91 on the harmonisation of aviation technical standards, the national aviation authorities of member states are required to be members of the JAA. The Regulation also adopted some of the JAA's Joint Aviation Requirements (JARs) as the European Community's harmonised standard and established a procedure to adopt future JARs as the EC standard. Where a JAR has not yet been adopted under EC law, JAA member states implement them under national law and are obliged, under the JAA Arrangements, to use their best efforts to implement JARs by the due date.

Requirements affecting the age of pilots are contained in the Joint Aviation Requirements on Flight Crew Licensing (JAR-FCL), which was adopted by the JAA in 1996 with the implementation date of 1 July 1999.

JARs generally set standards that are compatible with those set by the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) under the terms of the Chicago Convention, but can introduce differences, so long as member states notify the differences to ICAO. In drawing up the JAR-FCL, the JAA determined that commercial pilots can safely be licensed to the age of 65, provided that only one pilot in a multi-pilot aircraft may be over 60: this differs from the ICAO standard, under which a person can only act as a pilot in command if they are under 60. The UK and most other JAA member states are, or are in the process of, applying the JAR-FCL age limits. However, the French authorities are continuing to apply the ICAO age limits within French airspace, although co-pilots up to the age of 65 are permitted. The French authorities have said that they are not opposed to a joint approach from the JAA member states to ICAO seeking a revision of the ICAO provisions in line with those in JAR-FCL, and we will pursue this with the JAA.