Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

The Deputy's question relates to the flight time limitations of air crews.

The current EU rules on flight time limitations for commercial air transport operations are in place since July 2008 and were agreed following difficult negotiations in the European Council and Parliament. Under EU regulations, the European Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, is now charged with developing detailed technical rules for all aspects of aircraft operations, including flight time limitations for air crew. Under national law giving effect to these regulations, the Irish Aviation Authority, IAA, is the competent authority in the State for the purposes of these regulations and the authority also advises me on all aspects of aviation safety.

The IAA supported the retention of the technical part of the current flight time limitations regime for a longer time span in order to gather evidence on its validity, reliability and operation given its relatively short period of operation since 2008. However, following an extensive stakeholder consultation exercise, which included discussions with aircrew representative organisations, the draft regulation that has now been published by EASA proposes replacing the existing rules with a new flight time limitations regime.

With regard to the scientific reports commissioned by EASA on flight time limitations, the IAA advises me that there were a number of scientific reports on various aspects of flight time limitations but it considers that the possible future merits of the agency's proposed draft regulation on flight time limitations could be identified only following a current scientific study on the draft regulation and the associated guidance material as a complete package.

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