All organisations who held a JAR-FCL Registered Training Facility certificate must have transferred to a Declared Training Organisation (DTO) by 8 April 2019 if they wished to continue offering training for Aircrew Regulation Pilot licences and ratings after that date. Any organisation who did not make the transfer may no longer train towards Aircrew Regulation licences and ratings The regulations governing Declared Training Organisations may be found in in the Aircrew Regulation, Annex 8. The General Aviation Unit has also produced a Guidance Document, further explaining these requirements, what courses a DTO may offer, how to declare and what this means.
Please note that DTOs are not issued with any form of certificate by the CAA, unlike the approval certificate that an Approved Training Organisation (ATO) receives. Instead the allocated Inspector will send a copy of the completed declaration form back to the DTO which he will have signed and to which will be appended the individual DTO reference number.
Furthermore, it should be noted that only organisations with their Principal Place of Business within the United Kingdom (not including the Channel Islands or Isle of Man) be declare themselves as a DTO. Any organisation based outside of the UK wishing to offer training for Aircrew Regulation licences must apply to be an ATO.
What is the difference between a DTO and an ATO?
Quite simply put, the main difference is the courses which you can offer. The Pilot Training Organisations landings page detailed the courses each type of Organisation can offer.
Both ATOs and DTOs are inspected periodically by their allocated CAA Inspector. The time between inspections for each is dependant upon the performance of the Organisation at previous inspections, the risks they face, how effective the Safety systems are and the type of training they undertake. ATOs can, under certain conditions, go 48 months between inspections whilst the DTOs could go to 72 months, however a publish set of criteria must be met first.
DTOs are not required to submit Flying Order Books, Operations Manuals or Training Manuals to their inspector for formal inspection and approval. However, your Inspector will ask to see them on inspections.
There is not a requirement to have as many named postholders at a DTO, nor are DTOs required to submit personnel forms for each postholder for individual approval, unlike the ATO.
Safety Management in DTOs
Non-complex ATOs are required to have a simple Safety Management System whilst DTOs require a more stripped down version which includes a safety policy and a system of identifying operations hazards and the risks they pose as well as a system of implementing mitigations to reduce the likelihood and effect of these. The Policy must also take into account the Organisation’s responsibilities under the current regulations concerning the reporting of MORs.
Annual Reports
DTOs are required to submit an Annual Report, the month in which this is due will be notified to the organisation at the same time as notification of the DTO number is made. Details of what must be reported can be found in CAP1637. It is the DTOs responsibility to submit the Annual Report, your CAA Inspector will not remind you to do so. Failure to submit a report will mean a finding will be raised against the organisation at the next inspection. This will require the DTO to put in place an action plan to prevent a re-occurance.
Declaration form
Training Programmes
All organisations are reminded that, when submitting a declaration, they must identify an appropriately verified or approved Training Programme for each course to be offered. A list of programmes that have been verified or approved by the CAA and are commercially available can be found below. This list will be updated regularly as more programmes are submitted to us for verification/approval. Programmes submitted by individual organisations will not be included unless the CAA are advised by the applicant that they wish us to do so.
Details of how to submit a Training Programme for verification/approval can be found in CAP1637, the application form SRG2144 should be used.
Information on the current fees for declaration and verification of training programmes can be found in the Scheme of Charges Personnel Licensing on page 17.
CAA Approved Training Programmes