About this policy
If you are dissatisfied with a decision or proposal made in respect of a licence, authorisation, permission or approval, which directly affects you as an individual (not a company), there are a couple of options available:
Important Information:
- You must apply for either within 14 days of the date of the decision or proposal
- You do not need to request or complete a CAA Safety Decision Internal Review prior to requesting a Regulation 6 review.
Eligibility for a review
Your request must relate to a notification from a CAA official that the CAA has:
- decided to refuse to issue;
- decided to provisionally suspend; or
- proposed to vary, suspend or revoke
any licences, authorisations, permissions or approvals made in respect of an individual (i.e., not a company).
You should check the following eligibility criteria prior to submission:
- Flight crew licensing (including licensing action as a result of an airspace infringement, as well as licensing decisions taken by entities we delegate authority to)
- Aircraft maintenance engineers
- Air traffic controllers
- Rating and endorsements for instructors and examiners
- Aeromedical examiners
- RPAS Operational Authorisations, Operator IDs and Flyer IDs
- RPAS approvals or appointments as a Recognised Assessment Entity
The following will not be in scope:
- Safety decisions in respect of licences, authorisations, permissions or approvals made more than 14 days previously
- Safety decisions in respect of licences, authorisations, permissions or approvals in respect of a company
- Medical fitness decisions (which should be requested through the medical review process)
- A complaint about a service or member of staff, which should follow the CAA complaints process
- Judgement on level and/or amount of education or retraining relating to airspace infringements
- An unregulated person or organisation
- Decisions made about outcomes of service complaints, consumer complaints or complaints about third parties
- Decisions relating to requests for information made under the Freedom of Information Act, Environmental Information Regulations or the Data Protection Act.
- A decision that is currently being considered under Regulation 6 of the Civil Aviation Authority Regulations 1991.
- A matter that is under investigation or subject to enforcement action by the CAA.
You do not need to demonstrate why you think your case should be looked at again by someone in the CAA independent of the original decision, but any information you provide could be helpful to the case reviewer.
The CAA Safety Decision Internal Review process is an opportunity for the decision to be reviewed by a CAA official who has not been involved in the original decision-making process.
Such a review would look at whether the approved procedures were correctly applied by the relevant CAA team in reaching their decision.
If the initial internal review finds that the correct process was followed, you will be advised of that conclusion in writing within four weeks and that would be the end of the review process. In cases where that will not be possible, we will notify you as soon as possible, explain why and provide a revised timescale.
If the CAA Safety Decision Internal Review finds that the correct process was not followed another CAA official will be appointed to conduct a merits review of the decision or proposal. A merits review could take up to a further eight weeks, we will again confirm our decision in writing and if more time is required we will notify you as soon as possible, explain why and provided a revised timescale.
Reviews will be conducted by one or more appropriate and independent CAA official who has had no previous involvement in the decision-making process relating to the case.
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CAA Safety Decision internal Review
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Regulations set out a further avenue of case review should you remain dissatisfied with a decision.
You can challenge a decision or proposal relating to safety decisions in respect of licences, authorisation, permissions or approvals through a Regulation 6 review within 14 days of the date of the decision or proposal (or within 14 days of the end of the CAA Safety Decision Internal Review process if applicable). Instructions on how to request a Regulation 6 review may be included in the correspondence received or you can find details on our website here.
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Regulation 6 of the Civil Aviation Authority Regulations 1991
When you make a request for a review to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), your personal information will be used by us, for the purposes of considering your request for a review, producing anonymised statistical information and seeking to improve procedures through lessons learnt.
The CAA’s General Privacy Notice informs you how the CAA generally uses and looks after your personal information. This includes what you tell us about yourself and what we learn during our relationship with you.
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Your personal information
If a person becomes unreasonably persistent or concerning, we may choose not to deal with subsequent request and/or complaints in accordance with this policy.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) defines unreasonably persistent complainants as: “those who, because of the frequency or nature of their contact with the authority, hinder the authority’s consideration of their or other people’s complaints.”
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Persistent or concerning complaints
