The UK’s CAA has granted Blackpool-based Pool Aviation a JAR-OPS I AOC to operate its Beech 200. The company claims to be the first operator at Blackpool airport to have achieved this status.

EBAN spoke to Pool Aviation’s Geoff Hatton. He said: “It was very difficult to get the AOC. I must say that the CAA were fair but they were very demanding with what they wanted.

“They were fairly pedantic on some points regarding the wording of the manual and we laboured over some of the things. It wasn’t easy but I don’t think anybody has had an easy ride with it.”

Hatton went on to explain the obstacles that he faced: “The biggest problem I had was that I had three changes of flight operations inspector during the presentation of the manual which made it difficult because

each one had a slightly different angle on it.”

It took Hatton twelve months to gain the AOC. “That was a little bit my own fault. I had a chief pilot who took the job off me but really wasn’t up to the job on the administration side,” he explained.

According to Hatton, the most difficult problem was getting hold of the CAA: “They work hard. In the end I drove to the Manchester regional office on three or four occasions and spent a morning with them. We did more in that time than I had managed in a month by correspondence.”

Offering advice to others, he said: “If anybody else is doing it, they should have face- to-face meetings. The best advice is to make a friend of your flight operations inspector and treat him as a responsible person who knows all the rules and regulations.

“JAR-OPS is not really for a one-plane operator – it’s overkill. The paperwork now is more than doing the job. However, if you want to join the club you have to follow the rules.”

Hatton reports that the twelve month period was expensive because the Beech 200 had been purchased but was doing little work. The aircraft is now doing purely charter work, flying mainly in the UK and northern Europe.

Talking of plans for the future, Hatton commented: “This is the first aircraft that I’ve chartered and the first AOC that I’ve operated. We plan to consolidate the Beech 200 first and we also have a Cessna 401 which we are also planning to put on the AOC.”

Pool Aviation is making sure it remains cautious: “There are no other King Airs in the north west – that is

an advantage. We want to take it slowly, having seen too many companies expand too quickly then go bust. Everything we have is paid for,” added Hatton.

Finally Hatton talks of the possibility of partnership: “We might do a partnership, there's certainly a call for it up here in the north west – certainly from the amount of enquiries we’ve had. We have someone who is interested in buying a Citation II to put on the AOC but at the moment we are just looking at the viability of that.”