Acceptable Means of Compliance & Guidance Material to UK Regulation (EU) 965/2012: Air Operations

We asked for comments on the proposals for new Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance Material (GM) relating to the changes made to UK Regulation (EU) 965/2012 (the Air Operations Regulation) by the Aviation Safety (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2021/1203. Regulations 7-11 introduce requirements relating to the detection and prevention of misuse of psychoactive substances and the creation of support programmes. The AMC and GM proposed for: 

• The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to conduct ramp inspections which include arrangements for alcohol testing. 
• Commercial Air Transport (CAT) operators to develop a policy on the prevention and detection of misuse of psychoactive substances. 
• CAT operators to facilitate access to a proactive and non-punitive support programme for flight crew members to assist those persons to recognise, cope with and overcome any problem which could negatively affect their ability to safely exercise the privileges of their licence.

We received 29 comments from 8 respondents.

Your responses generally agreed with the proposed changes. Your comments included the following:

• Testing should be conducted in such a way as to promote an amicable, non-confrontational atmosphere with a view to preserving the mental and emotional well-being of the crew members concerned, as well as advancing the priority of maintaining flight safety.
• A request for clarification on an 'appropriate and approved' device and 'national requirements’.
• Specific details on the initial and recurrent training of ramp inspectors with regards to alcohol testing.
• An operator should establish an appeal process with regards to psychoactive substances.
• Endorsing the proposed material to enable operators to effectively implement support programmes to assist crews with welfare issues.

You also commented on the potential regulatory burden on small operators implementing the AMC/GM with regards to psychoactive substances and support programmes.

You said that support programmes should be available to all safety sensitive personnel.

The Air Operations Regulation has contained requirements for the development and implementation of policies on the prevention and detection of misuse of psychoactive substances and the creation of a support programmes for all operators since November 2021. We have developed clear and accessible AMC and supporting GM to these regulations, which outlines:  

• Operator responsibilities for the development and implementation of a policy and associated procedures for the prevention and detection of misuse of psychoactive substances by crew members and other safety-sensitive personnel.
• Flexibility in the approach to the method of testing to ensure the requirements are proportionate to the size of the organisation.
• How an operator should meet its requirements to provide a support programme for flight crew.
• Operator responsibilities for the prevention of a person boarding an aircraft when under the influence of a psychoactive substance and behaving in such a way as to endanger safety.

The AMC and GM were developed with due consideration to the UK industry and our own established reporting processes. Following consultation, the CAA has also carried out a thorough review of all the comments received and made amendments where we feel further clarification is required. For example, we have included in the AMC that operators should provide for an internal appeal process following a confirmed positive test result.

In response to the comments received we have made some adjustments to provide additional clarity on the training of ramp inspectors, and agreed to update the procedure for the conduct of alcohol testing during ramp inspections to help preserve crew wellbeing as far as is practically possible.  

Safety is of paramount importance to the CAA and underpins all our decision-making. At the same time, we acknowledge the potential additional burden, particularly for smaller organisations, to conduct pre-employment alcohol testing and ongoing random testing. Therefore, we have left the frequency of ongoing testing to individual organisations to determine based on their size and complexity of their operation.

 As per the requirement of ARO.RAMP.106 (b), we have established procedures for ramp inspections which are contained in the Ramp Inspectors Manual). The purpose of this manual is to describe best practices and give guidance to the CAA personnel performing ramp inspections including alcohol testing. It covers the delivery, management, and administration of ramp inspections as well as the ramp inspector qualification process.

The CAA has published guidance on the procedures and quality standards for alcohol testing on the UK Ramp inspection programme page of the CAA website.

Specific recurrent training on alcohol testing will be addressed in an update to ARO.RAMP.115 in due course.

National limits of alcohol are defined in ARO.RAMP.106(e) and are commensurate with those in other transport regulations.

Whilst the regulation currently only requires operators to have a support programme available for flight crew, they may choose to make support programmes available to all their employees, including all safety sensitive personnel.