Aerodrome equipment rules: What we asked for in Cologne

Equipment that helps aircraft operate safely at an aerodrome has to be shown to meet the rules. Today that is done separately at each aerodrome.

On October 16, 2026, EASA held the “Aerodrome Equipment Workshop” at its headquarters in Cologne. The agency presented a draft Opinion and a draft Implementing Regulation to national authorities, manufacturers, and aerodrome operators. Together they propose a framework to certify this equipment.

Fabio Masci, who founded the company in 2017 and leads it, took part in person. His talk, “Industry perspective on the new EU framework”, gave the view of a European small or medium-sized enterprise. It made two requests: rules that clearly draw the perimeter companies work in, and rules that judge the result rather than fix every detail.

Why would equipment makers ask for clear rules?

The starting point is military aviation, where Fabio Masci, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Italian Air Force, ran flight safety at a fighter wing. Pilots learn there that rules exist to keep them alive. Good rules mark the edges of the flight envelope and leave the stick to the pilot.

Some rules override the engineer line by line. Others draw a perimeter and define what “safe” means, and inside it manufacturers are free to design. We think the proposed framework should draw that perimeter and let the best design win.

Clarity also has economic value. A company and its investors who know the perimeter can plan what must be shown, how long certification takes, and roughly what it costs. That lets them commit capital and hire engineers.

When rules stay unclear or keep changing, companies wait or take the technology elsewhere.

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What should a rule fix: The design or the result?

In our view, Europe competes on added value: quality, performance, reliability over time, and the intelligence built into a product. Those qualities count for safety at an aerodrome, and a rule that flattens every product to a minimum design removes them.

Drafters of technical rules are tempted to prescribe the wire gauge, the material, and the type of component, because a prescriptive rule feels safer. Still, it has three limits.

It freezes the technology at the moment the rule is written, while sensors and software change fast. It leaves the manufacturer nothing to design. And it does not prove safety, because a product can meet every detail and still behave badly in operation.

The alternative is to define what the equipment must achieve: what it has to detect, with what reliability, availability, and accuracy, and in which conditions. The rule then sets how that is verified, at peak performance and over time.

The manufacturer chooses how to get there and carries the burden of proof. If the framework is adopted, its detailed specifications would settle this choice and should be performance specifications.

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Why does the speed of iteration matter?

Research explores what no one has done yet, so most attempts fail, and that is the method. If each iteration takes a year and a large budget, a company can afford a few attempts; if it takes weeks, many.

So a framework can be judged by how quickly, and at what cost, a company can change and resubmit a product. Minor changes in particular should be handled quickly and in proportion.

In our experience, European research money is spread over many programs, so a project often gets enough to start and rarely enough to finish. Regulation cannot fix that, but it can avoid making it worse.

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Can a performance standard answer unfair competition?

Equipment sold below its real cost, backed by subsidies to win a market, distorts competition. Where safety is at stake, it also puts quality under pressure.

The instinctive answer is tariffs, which invite retaliation, hurt European exporters, and are renegotiated sooner or later.

A performance standard works differently. Every manufacturer, European or not, must show a defined level of performance, at its peak and over time, to enter the market, verified openly. Clearing that bar has a real cost, so selling far below cost becomes hard to sustain.

That is a demanding standard for everyone, with no protectionism.

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What would one European scheme change for an aerodrome?

Today a manufacturer of safety-related equipment meets different interpretations, tests, and document formats at each aerodrome. It shows compliance for the same product again and again. In our experience, the cost weighs most on small companies and adds nothing to safety.

EASA's 2024 proposal, Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) 2024-05, makes a similar point. It found no harmonized approach in the European Union to showing compliance.

Under that proposal, certified or declared equipment would be considered appropriate for use at every aerodrome within the Basic Regulation's scope. In the 2024 text the scheme was voluntary and market-driven. Manufacturers could apply to the agency or keep demonstrating compliance aerodrome by aerodrome.

No European certification scheme for this equipment exists yet. A common scheme would give manufacturers predictability and give aerodrome operators and authorities confidence.

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How could a voluntary certificate pay off?

A voluntary scheme works only when choosing it pays. The talk put forward incentives for aerodrome operators that choose certified equipment.

Acceptance at each aerodrome could need fewer local checks and documents. Change management in the aerodrome's safety assessment could be simpler.

Certification could count as an eligibility or award criterion for European and national co-funding. Public procurement could treat it as evidence of quality and performance, beside price. In our reading, none of these levers would need a change to the Basic Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2018/1139.

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What will we look for in the final texts?

The talk closed with four principles: a clear perimeter, outcome-based specifications, room to iterate, and an incentive to choose certification. We will read the final texts against them.

In a race, no one asks the organizers to slow down the fastest car. Every team shares the same rules and clock, which keeps the technology moving. We ask the same of the proposed framework: one high bar, set clearly and the same for every manufacturer.

We will follow the detailed specifications. We also have a seat, since October 2024, in EASA's expert group on safety-related aerodrome equipment (RMT.0161). To discuss these points, write to our team through the contacts page.

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