AviationCV.com: Is there a way to uniform the JAA and FAA licensing requirements?

The two largest pilot licensing institutions – the European Joint Aviation Authority (JAA) and the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) - have so far been adamant about sticking to different licensing standards and have refused to accept licenses issued by one another. However, although licenses issued by both agencies are considered to be valid in many countries around the world, pilots holding the JAA issued license cannot fly within the United States and vice versa. In this age of globalization this situation causes many issues and there are more and more professionals encouraging both agencies to standardise the existing licensing procedures.

The USA and Europe maintain slightly different attitudes towards pilot training. The JAA offers two training systems – an integrated and a modular one. Opposite to FAA that emphasizes practical readiness, the JAA is more focused on theoretical preparedness and its practical application. There are several other differences between the two institutions: the FAA issues a license considerably faster the JAA; Training in the USA is cheaper whilst pilots who own a European institution issued license and have less flying experience may earn more than the USA license holders as they are required to spend much more hours up in the sky (an candidate for an FAA pilot license must have at least 250 hours of real flying experience, compared to the JAA’s required 200).

A pilot holding an FAA license is faced with a lot more difficulties if he wants to convert it into a JAA one. After all, he must pass 14 exams covering air law and ATC procedures, airframe systems, instrumentation, mass and balance, performance, flight planning, human performance, meteorology, general navigation, radio navigation, operational procedures, principles of flight, VFR communications and IFR communications. Theoretical training in Europe takes around half a year whilst in the USA they consider a couple weeks’ theoretical training to be fully sufficient.

Over the last decade both institutions have been seeking for ways to agree over harmonized licensing standards. AviationCV.com experts maintain that global aviation will soon be simply incapable of operating under different pilot training standards based on separate regions. The biggest issue regarding the matter is an ability to sustain equal safety requirements worldwide (including standards in the emerging markets and those exercised by the European ‘black listed’ providers).

“Aviation experts sometimes joke that in America pilots are only taught flying whilst in Europe they must also possess technical skills. The USA and Europe should come to an agreement and offer either a possibility to convert the existing licenses more easily or establish a single standardised version. Both regions are known as the most reliable safety-wise, therefore, despite the differences in their training philosophies, they are both concerned with achieving the same objective – to ensure the adequate supply of highly qualified specialists”, concluded the CEO of AviationCV.com Skaiste Knyzaite.

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