EASA and Singapore update bilateral agreement to help validate aircraft type certifications

The Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty Sin­ga­pore (CAAS) have updat­ed their bilat­er­al Work­ing Arrange­ment, to facil­i­tate CAAS’ val­i­da­tion of EASA air­craft type cer­ti­fi­ca­tions.

The amend­ment to the Work­ing Arrange­ment on Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will allow the two reg­u­la­tors to col­lab­o­rate on facil­i­tat­ing avi­a­tion inno­va­tions, such as eVTOL air­craft.

Patrick Ky, EASA’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, said: “This amend­ment is tes­ta­ment to the excel­lent rela­tions in avi­a­tion between Europe and Sin­ga­pore. It fur­ther extends the trust we have in each other’s avi­a­tion sys­tem and our strong work­ing rela­tion­ship with CAAS.

“In today’s world, where prod­uct inno­va­tion is much faster than was the case only a decade ago, such par­al­lel process­es can help indus­try to launch their prod­ucts more quick­ly and eas­i­ly in impor­tant mar­kets out­side Europe.” 

With imme­di­ate effect, CAAS will be able to val­i­date EASA design approvals con­cur­rent­ly  and in close coor­di­na­tion with EASA’s type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process. It will help avi­a­tion com­pa­nies in Sin­ga­pore to inno­vate and ben­e­fit from rapid­ly devel­op­ing avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies. 

In the Work­ing Arrange­ment on Air­wor­thi­ness Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion between EASA and CAAS signed on 13 July 2017, the val­i­da­tion by CAAS could only com­mence after EASA had issued the Type Cer­tifi­cate.  

Mr Kevin Shum, Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of CAAS, added: “CAAS is com­mit­ted to work­ing togeth­er with the avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ty to pro­mote safe­ty and inno­va­tion, to advance avi­a­tion.

“This enhance­ment of the Work­ing Arrange­ment is tes­ta­ment to the strong part­ner­ship between CAAS and EASA. It will help to devel­op Sin­ga­pore as a cen­tre of excel­lence for the avi­a­tion sec­tor.” 

This lat­est news by EASA was wel­comed by Ger­man start­up Volo­copter, espe­cial­ly as it has ear­marked Sin­ga­pore as a poten­tial launch city when it begins com­mer­cial oper­a­tions of its VoloC­i­ty eVTOL, which could be as ear­ly as 2023.

Volo­copter is cur­rent­ly the only air taxi devel­op­er to be award­ed SC-VTOL Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval from EASA and in 2019, it flew its VoloC­i­ty over Mari­na Bay and also dis­played a pro­to­type of its ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture — known as a Volo­Port — for the first time.