The CAA’s Head of General Aviation, Rachel Gardner-Poole, has written a letter to industry representatives in response to requests for financial assistance for the sector, as it attempts to recover from the impact of COVID-19.
The letter (sent as an e-mail to the GA Partnership) states:
“A number of you have asked if the CAA can do anything more to help organisations who are struggling financially. As I’ve mentioned to many of you, the whole sector, including the CAA through its funding structure, is facing liquidity issues.
“We have introduced a number of measures, including pay cuts for our staff and a delay in the increase of our charges. But the CAA is funded by levying charges on the individuals and organisations we regulate to retain the capacity and capabilities we require to fulfil our functions. This principle is underpinned by statute and is one of our legal obligations.
“So despite these unprecedented times, we are unable to waive any of our charges and we are still required to issue invoices.
“However, we now have some more positive news. At the end of last week, we successfully established an appropriate financial structure to be able to offer a Payment Plan to cover annual charges. This will spread the payments between now and the end of February 2021.
“We have set this scheme up as quickly as possible and will be publishing more information on our COVID-19 web page. This will include details of how to apply.
“I hope this is something that some of your organisations will be able to take advantage of and I wanted to give you advance notice before it is communicated to stakeholders more formally.”
For the CAA COVID-19 web page please visit https://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/Newsroom/COVID-19/