Licence, Rating and Unit Endorsement
In civil aviation the state issues the licence. The usual pattern is a licence, a rating for a type of service, and an endorsement for a unit. A rating on its own does not authorise every unit of that type. The names on the licence are the state's.
· by Michal Zembol
The state issues the licence
The employer trains and employs the controller. The privilege to provide an air traffic control service comes from the licence, and the licence is issued under the rules of a state. An offer of employment is not that document.
In the United Kingdom the Civil Aviation Authority issues it. Its air traffic controller licence page says a full licence is issued to the holder of a student licence after a unit endorsement course and assessment. Other states use their own authority and their own sequence. The FAA's path, for example, is not this UK sequence.
The rating is the type of service
The rating says which kind of air traffic control the holder is allowed to provide. Aerodrome, approach, and area are the usual split. A rating for one of them is not a rating for the other two. How those services differ in the operation is Tower, Approach and Area Control.
Under UK Reg (EU) 2015/340, which the UK CAA applies, a licence contains one or more of these ratings:
- Aerodrome Control Visual (ADV), for an aerodrome with no published instrument approach or departure procedures.
- Aerodrome Control Instrument (ADI), for an aerodrome that has those procedures.
- Approach Control Procedural (APP), without surveillance equipment.
- Approach Control Surveillance (APS), with surveillance equipment.
- Area Control Procedural (ACP), without surveillance equipment.
- Area Control Surveillance (ACS), with surveillance equipment.
That list is the UK regulation's list. It is also the list used under the European rules it was copied from. It is not the list on a United States certificate, and it is not a reason to assume another country's licence uses the same abbreviations.
A rating can be narrowed
A rating endorsement limits or extends what that rating covers. On an instrument tower rating, UK Reg (EU) 2015/340 distinguishes air control, ground movement control, and tower control, and it can add surface-movement or aerodrome radar endorsements. Approach and area ratings have their own endorsements, including oceanic control on a procedural area rating.
The practical point is smaller than the list. Two people can hold an aerodrome rating and still not be authorised for the same seat. The endorsement on the licence says which part of the service is theirs.
The unit endorsement is the place
The unit endorsement authorises the holder to provide the service for a specific sector, group of sectors, or working positions at one unit. That is the wording in ATCO.B.020 of UK Reg (EU) 2015/340. Another aerodrome is another endorsement. Another approach unit is another endorsement. Sectors at a second centre are another endorsement.
This is why a newly qualified controller starts at one unit. The rating course taught the type of service. The unit course taught that place. Moving later is further training, not a form to fill in on the day the first endorsement is issued.
What has to stay valid
The UK CAA's student licence page requires a current UK Class 3 medical certificate, and English at least at level 4 on the ICAO language scale, before a student licence is issued. A unit endorsement is valid only for the period the state sets, and it has to be kept current by the unit's competence scheme.
Those are UK conditions. Another state names its own medical standard and its own language requirement. The employer's vacancy notice is where a campaign points to them. Training up to the endorsement is covered in How Air Traffic Controller Training Works.