In 2005 ICAO approved a new type of license. This new license created serious concerns among the pilot community because of its potential risk to reduce the current standards of pilot training and a threat to aviation safety.

When the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) announced that they would start the process of implementation, ECA and all its Member Associations reacted in a strong and coordinated manner with one objective: ensuring that the MPL will be implemented in a safe manner.

JAA understood the keen interest and concerns of the pilot community. As a result, it accepted the involvement of ECA representatives in the process of drafting the amendment to the JAR-FCL introducing the new MPL.

Working together, the ECA pilots eventually achieved an important number of technical improvements to the initial JAA text (ECA had the largest number of comments accepted in the Licensing Steering Team). Crucially, ECA has succeeded in establishing a Monitoring System, with the participation of pilots, to ensure that the new license will be introduced gradually and implemented with the necessary quality standards.

Although the result is not perfect (there are still some concerns about the MPL concept); the many changes made by ECA to the initial JAA MPL proposal add up to quite an important improvement. ECA would like to thank all those who made these achievements possible: JAA for its understanding, the ECA Licensing Working Group, led by Fran Hoyas, for their technical expertise, our technical director, Thomas Mildenberger and all the Member Associations for their very active support. You did a great job!