On 29 April 2020, the European Commission announced that the coronavirus crisis has made it necessary to reconsider the upcoming 7 June 2020 deadline to equip aircraft with ADS-B. As a relief measure to airlines, the Commission amended Regulation 1207/2011 on 29 April 2020 in order to postpone this deadline by six months to 7 December 2020.
In addition to the transition period introduced in the amended Regulation, this change will provide aircraft operators that had planned to retrofit their aircraft between now and June more time to do so, or to put in place an appropriate retrofit program.
While the press release from the European Commission leads you to believe this only applies to airlines, the extension of time is appliable to all aircraft with the 7 June 2020 deadline. Details on the revised mandate for the ADS-B technology can be found at https://ads-b-europe.eu/.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has extended several comment periods on current notices of proposed amendment:
- NPA 2020-07: Unmanned aircraft system beyond visual line operations over populated areas or assemblies of people in the “specific” category has been extended until 29 May 2020.
- NPA 2020-06: Implementation of the latest CAEP amendments to ICAO Annex 16 Volumes I, II and III has been extended until 16 June 2020.
- NPA 2020-05: Tyre pressure monitoring has been extended until 26 June 2020.
- NPA 2020-04: Regular update of the Acceptable Means of Compliance and Guidance Material to Annex I (Part 21) to Regulation (EU) No 748/2012 has been extended until 5 June 2020.
- NPA 2020-03: Amendment of the requirements for flight recorders and underwater locating devices — Certification specifications, acceptable means of compliance, and guidance material for locating an aircraft in distress has been extended until 29 May 2020.
- NPA 2020-01: Regular update of CS-25 has been extended until 29 May 2020.