EU OPS

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Regulation (EEC) No. 3922/91

Title: Regulation (EEC) No. 3922/91 of the Council of 16 December 1991 on the harmonization of technical regulations and administrative procedures in civil aviation
Designation:
(not official) 		EU OPS
Scope: European Union
Legal matter: Aviation law
Basis: EEC Treaty , in particular Art. 84
To be used from: January 1, 1992
Reference: Official Journal No. L 373, December 31, 1991, pp. 4-8
Full text Consolidated version (not official)
basic version
Regulation has entered into force and is applicable.
Please note the information on the current version of legal acts of the European Union !

EU OPS (abbreviation for Air Operations Regulation of the EU) is a regulation of the European Union (EU) which defines the minimum safety and related procedures for commercial air traffic with passenger and cargo aircraft. The legislation is officially published as Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3922/91 of 16 December 1991 on the harmonization of technical regulations and administrative procedures in civil aviation .

Categories

Following consultations between the EU and the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) in 1997, these regulations are derived from the JAR-OPS 1 regulation, which was valid until 2008, and are very similar to these. Since then, their regulations have been replaced by EASA-OPS. The regulations concern training, documentation, procedures and conformities in the following categories:

  • Operator certification and monitoring
  • Operating procedures
  • All weather operation
  • General performance
  • Performance class A
  • Performance class B
  • Performance class C
  • Mass and balance
  • Instruments and equipment
  • Communication and navigation equipment
  • Aircraft maintenance
  • Flight crew
  • Cabin crew
  • Manuals, logs and records
  • Flight and duty time restrictions and recovery requirements
  • Transport of dangerous goods by air
  • safety

Further development of the flight operation rules

The European Commission has published on 24 August 2013, the Commission Regulation (EU) 800/2013 on Air Operations. It amends Regulation (EU) 965/2012 laying down the technical requirements and administrative procedures for flight operations in accordance with Regulation (EC) No. 216/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council and extends its scope to non-commercial operations with airplanes, helicopters and balloons and gliders.

Rules in Europe

Despite their importance for flight safety, until recently there were no European flight time rules . It is only since July 2008 that the EU member states have had to comply with Section Q (in Appendix III) of the EU OPS Regulation, which regulates flight time restrictions (FTL) for flight crews.

With this EU-OPS Subsection Q, for the first time in history, the EU has introduced a harmonized, legally binding minimum set of FTL safety rules to prevent pilot fatigue across Europe. Individual EU countries can apply stricter FTL regulations at national level, but they must not go below the minimum specified by EU-OPS, unless they apply for a specific exemption.

In addition to the legal requirements, collective labor agreements (CLAs) at the company level often contain FTL provisions that are specifically tailored to the conditions of that company. These CLA rules cannot set security levels lower than EU-OPS. In most cases they have stricter FTL regulations than national laws or EU-OPS. They therefore offer a higher level of security than required by law.

Part Q is by no means ideal when determining a minimum level of security. Its main weakness is that it has never been subjected to any scientific or medical evaluation. Therefore, the provisions of Part Q are not based on sound scientific evidence of their ability to prevent pilot fatigue. This is an important point of criticism, as today's regulations do not guarantee that passengers can enjoy the highest, scientifically proven level of safety when boarding a European aircraft.

In addition, subsection Q does not deal with important FTL aspects that are of crucial importance for flight safety, such as: B. Split duty, the extended crew on long-haul flights, certain types of standby etc. These areas are currently left to the national legislators; so there are different national laws in Europe.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Regulation (EEC) No. 3922/91 on the harmonization of technical regulations and administrative procedures in civil aviation
  2. ↑ JAR-OPS 1
  3. ↑ Regulation (EU) No. 800/2013 of the Commission of August 14, 2013
  4. ↑ Regulation (EU) No. 965/2012 of the Commission
  5. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 216/2008 of February 20, 2008 laying down common rules for civil aviation ...
  6. ↑ eurocockpit.be European Cockpit Association

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