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UK Civil Aviation Regulations

These are published by the CAA on our UK Regulations pages. EU Regulations and EASA Access Guides published by EASA no longer apply in the UK. Our website and publications are being reviewed to update all references. Any references to EU law and EASA Access guides should be disregarded and where applicable the equivalent UK versions referred to instead.



Processing times for aircraft certification applications

We are seeing an increase in aircraft certification applications (Certificate of Airworthiness, Temporary Permit to Fly and Flight Conditions), due to EU exit and Covid-19 pandemic business continuity planning.

This has presented challenges with meeting the service level agreement of 15 working days (five days for Temporary Permit to Fly applications) for processing each application, before it is passed on to an available airworthiness surveyor to carry out any required oversight, and the certificate can be issued to the applicant.

We have allocated additional resource to process the application backlog as quickly as possible.

As a result of this increase in overall volumes, we have recently withdrawn the same day/fast track application process for all applications other than:

  • Temporary Permit to Fly – for an AOC AOG aircraft or a State aircraft only
  • Overflight Permission – for operational aircraft only

Applications are being processed in the order that they are received and we are unable to accommodate expedite requests.

While we aim to meet or improve on our service level agreement, however this depends on applications containing all of the required information.

Incomplete applications will result in the possible rejection or the application being put ‘on hold’ due to missing data. This will result in additional time to process the application and the issuing of the required licence or approval certificate.