Balloon Air Operations

The EASA Committee of the European Commission have today voted positively to introduce the first part of the Balloon Regulation, namely Balloon Air Operations.  The EASA Committee meets 3/4 times a year for two-day meetings. This is the fifth consecutive meeting where Balloon Air Operations has been debated, but the first one where a vote of member states has been taken.

The new regulation is expected to be published and to become European law either in late 2017 or early 2018.  However, it will not enter into force until 8 April 2019, with compliance being mandatory by 8 October 2019.

The context was favourable to new regulations, as there was a conjunction of two factors: EASA created the “Road Map for GA”, led by Dominique Roland, which called for simpler and more proportionate regulations for the General Aviation sector, and the balloonists community, through EBF’s voice, strongly rejected Part Ops EU.965.2012 as too complicated and unsuited for balloons.

So Balloon Air Operations has been something of a pathfinder for the GA Road Map.  A group of ballooning experts, drawn from EASA, National Aviation Authorities [NAA], balloon manufacturers, and the European Balloon Federation, have comprised a working group to develop the new regulation.  This was then followed by a number of changes for “legal clarity” by the legal services of the European Commission.

Balloon Air Operations encompasses ALL operations of balloons, including private ballooning, and there is a set of rules specific to commercial operations, (Commercial Ballooning). Therefore, all balloon pilots and operators will need to become familiar with the new regulation, and to undertake whatever is required to fully comply with the rules.  Commercial passenger ballooning operators will have to make significant changes, (depending on the regulation already existing in their own country) including the preparation and submission of a new Operations Manual, and lodge Declarations with their NAAs.  All balloon operators will need to comply with the requirements of Part-BAS, with all commercial operators additionally needing to comply with the requirements of Part-ADD.  EASA, assisted by the ballooning expert group, will publish both guidance material and acceptable means of compliance, which will hopefully be of assistance to the ballooning sector.

So ballooning operators should now be ready for the formal publication of the Balloon Regulation and start preparing for compliance with it at the earliest opportunity.  Accountable managers of commercial passenger balloon operators should provisionally allocate resources towards transition to the new requirements and be very aware that their company has to be ready by 8 October 2019. The process should not be too difficult or costly, especially in countries where good and constructive relations exist between operators and the NAA.

This new regulation which, as we hope, will help ballooning to live well and develop, would not exist without the continuous implication and competence of a small group of people, within the Balloon Air Operations working group: Jan Boettcher, and Philippe Stabenau (EASA) NAAs representatives from France, UK, Germany, Belgium, CZ and the Netherlands, Petr Kubicek from Kubicek balloons (CZ) and EBF’s representatives (Karel Abbenes, Phil Dunnington).

So the work for Ballooning Operations is nearly completed, but a parallel group of ballooning experts, led by Paul Spellward for EBF, are currently working on Balloon FCL (including influencing medical requirements) and a 3^rd one have worked on training organisations. About training, the DTO (Declared training Organisation) which will replace the ATO (Approved Training Organisation) has also been discussed these last 2 days, although not voted yet, but it should be approved later on and be enforced in 2018-19 for airplanes and helicopters, 2019-20 for gliders and balloons.

Contact EBF bureau:

Patricia Lamy, President: pla@ballooning-federation.eu
Karel Abbenes, Vice President, kaa@ballooning-federation.eu
Phil Dunnington, General Secretary: phd@ballooning-federation.eu