That's exactly it. Just some examples of the crazyness going on:
In france they translate the written exams into french, why when the aviation language is english? I would have been happy to speak french if that was the agreed language, but it's not. (BTW english is not my first language, neither is french so I DO have the right to complain
)French airlines, including Air France, speak french with ATC in france. A few years ago people where killed in a crash between a french and a UK airline at one of the Paris airports due to runway incursion. It would have been avoided had the french spoken english. Did they learn from this accident? NO they still speak french.
EASA only recruits people that speak a minimum of two languages, again why? This effectively means that many senior aviation specialists from the UK and Ireland can't be recruited. Who comes up with this crap?
I recently transferred my licenses over to Ireland (you can change state luckily), after being fed up with my old authority. I (and many others) thought they where overcharging for their services. The reason for overcharging? They were following the JAR's more than other states.
How can different states follow and interpret rules differently? I guess the answer to that is found in your post Kenny.
It's OK to be a proud little country in Europe, but pride should not come in the way of safety.
