Certificate of Airworthiness (EASA CofA)

The Certificate of Airworthiness is the individual aircraft document that says, in effect, "this specific airframe matches an approved design and is safe to fly." It is issued under Part-21 (Annex I to Commission Regulation (EU) No 748/2012), which requires the aircraft to conform to a type design covered by a type certificate and to be in a condition for safe operation. The CofA is aircraft-specific — it belongs to the tail number, not the type — and it is the operational licence to fly that sits on top of the type-level design approval.

EASA recognizes more than one form of airworthiness document. A full CofA is issued to an aircraft that conforms to a type certificate. A Restricted Certificate of Airworthiness (RCofA) is issued where an aircraft conforms instead to a restricted type certificate or has shown compliance with specific airworthiness specifications ensuring adequate safety, but does not meet the full requirements for a standard CofA. Distinct from both is the Permit to Fly, a temporary, individually issued document granted by derogation when an aircraft needs to fly but cannot hold a valid (R)CofA — for example during development, non-revenue positioning, or after a non-compliance — issued for a maximum period of twelve months under 21.A.723 and often for less.

The defining feature of the EASA CofA is that it does not expire. It is issued once and remains valid indefinitely, provided the aircraft continues to conform to its type design, is maintained in accordance with the applicable continuing-airworthiness rules (Part-M or Part-ML), and — critically — the aircraft's Airworthiness Review Certificate (ARC) is kept current. The ARC is the periodic health check that keeps the non-expiring CofA alive: it is normally valid for one year and must be renewed or reissued on schedule. If the ARC lapses, the aircraft cannot legally fly even though the CofA itself has not been withdrawn. The CofA's own validity can be affected if, for instance, the underlying type certificate is suspended under 21.A.181.

This structure differs from the FAA approach. The FAA issues a Standard Airworthiness Certificate that is also effectively non-expiring, but it keeps the aircraft's ongoing status alive through the inspection regime — the annual inspection under 14 CFR Part 91.409 and, for certain operations, 100-hour inspections — rather than through a separate periodic review certificate like the ARC. The FAA also uses a Special Airworthiness Certificate for categories such as experimental, restricted and light-sport, filling roughly the role that the EASA RCofA and Permit to Fly cover on the European side. The end goal is the same on both systems: continuous, documented evidence that the aircraft still conforms to its approved design and remains safe to operate.

For a European flight school or aeroclub, the CofA is easy to take for granted precisely because it does not expire — but the ARC that keeps it valid absolutely does. The document that grounds a trainer is almost never the CofA; it is a lapsed ARC, a missed maintenance deadline that breaks the "maintained in accordance with Part-ML/Part-M" condition, or an outstanding airworthiness directive. Because training aircraft are high-utilization, they reach ARC and inspection deadlines faster than privately flown aircraft, so treating the CofA as a set-and-forget document is a reliable way to lose an aircraft from the line mid-season.

The distinction between a full CofA, an RCofA and a Permit to Fly also matters when a school buys or leases an aircraft. An aircraft on an RCofA or a Permit to Fly may carry operational limitations that make it unsuitable for revenue training, and the paperwork chain — type certificate, CofA, current ARC — is exactly what a buyer, lessor or authority will want to see intact before the aircraft earns its keep.

Aviatize's Maintenance Control module treats the Certificate of Airworthiness as part of each aircraft's living record and tracks the condition that actually keeps it valid — the Airworthiness Review Certificate expiry, the maintenance programme status and outstanding airworthiness directives — with alerts well before the ARC or any interval comes due. That turns the non-expiring CofA from a hidden risk into a monitored one.

Digital Data & Records stores the CofA, the type-certificate reference and the ARC history alongside the airframe, so that during a sale, lease transfer or authority audit the full initial- and continuing-airworthiness chain can be produced from one place rather than assembled from paper files.