UK CAA suspends PremiAir’s Air Operator’s Certificate

Graham Avery of PremiAir

PremiAir at Blackbushe Airport acknowledges that the UK CAA has temporarily suspended its Air Operator’s Certificate.

Graham Avery is the chairman of PremiAir.

PremiAir, a charter aircraft operator in the UK, has issued a statement which acknowledges that the UK CAA has temporarily suspended its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC).

The reason for the suspension is that as part of the company’s restructure under new ownership, it currently does not have the full contingent of pilots who need to be assigned to its AOC operations to fulfil the Authority’s regulations.

Currently each of PremiAir’s senior experienced pilots must fly with another pilot who is under 60 years of age when undertaking public transport flights. While PremiAir’s AOC aircraft are approved for single pilot operations, because of the age limit, the company cannot undertake any of this flying with only one pilot.

PremiAir is actively engaged in a recruitment programme to take on younger pilots to fly with its more experienced captains.

The company will be re-assigning a younger Eurocopter AS355 Twin Squirrel pilot with instrument rating to Blackbushe to commence AOC line training. Once this has been completed and the CAA is satisfied that PremiAir has responded satisfactorily to the findings and the manning issue, the AOC will be taken out of suspension and restored.

PremiAir expects this to be within the next 14 days.  Its operating licence will be restored automatically following the reissuing of the AOC.

PremiAir’s other aviation support activities, MRO, design and technical support, charter flight brokerage and helicopter passenger handling at the newly named West London Heliport in Blackbushe is unaffected by this development.