Captain James Courtney:

The issue of the home base was not very tightly regulated. With the new regulations, they have introduced requirements that the home base must have what they call an element of permanence attached to it. Again, that will limit operators' abilities because if they wish to change bases regularly, as some operators do, they will now have to introduce a level of permanence, as it is called. If an operator needs to change the base, it will have to do it with a considerable amount of notice and give staff extra days off in preparation to allow them to get to the new base. The EASA has also introduced an additional requirement that while an operator is getting staff to the new base, this is counted as part of their duty time, which was not previously in existence. The new regulations associated with the home base have tightened up the regulations more so than the current arrangements.