EASA and EUROCONTROL jointly organised an Air Traffic Controller Competency-based Training and Assessment (CBTA) Workshop for National Competent Authorities on October 27-28, 2026, to support them in understanding the amendment to the European Air Traffic Control Officer Licensing Regulation (EU) 2015/340. From January 1, 2029, the amendment introduces CBTA requirements for initial training and operational air traffic services units and air traffic controller training organisations.
Held at EUROCONTROL's Aviation Learning Centre, the workshop brought together national authority participants to discuss the challenges and opportunities of managing regulatory oversight of the change, with perspectives shared by CANSO, the GATE Training Organisation, the EUROCONTROL Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre, the Belgian Supervisory Authority and the Irish Aviation Authority. Participants concluded that implementing CBTA represents the most significant change to air traffic controller training since the establishment of the common European rules and is likely to provide systemic benefits at network level. They also found that early exchanges between training organisations and national authorities are necessary for timely implementation, that national authorities play a crucial role in managing resources and approval schedules through early communication on expected timelines and additional documentation, and that training courses can be updated to reflect CBTA requirements provided courses and training plans continue to comply with the applicable requirements until the end of 2028. The workshop further concluded that fully exploiting the flexibility of the CBTA approach is key to unlocking efficiency gains in the controller training pipeline, and that a more structured dialogue is needed across national authorities toward a harmonised implementation landscape at EU level.
To support these conclusions, EASA and EUROCONTROL declared their readiness to accompany national authority or stakeholder initiatives on approval and oversight of the new methodology, support structured dialogue across national authorities, foster dedicated discussions over the next two years, develop a generic introductory online course for inspectors and other stakeholders covering basic CBTA principles, move forward with the EASA Data4Training initiative to use European-wide training data to improve course design and delivery, and consider further tools for sharing best practices and a specific inspector training course for CBTA implementation. As a next step, both organisations agreed to work toward integrating the conclusions into parallel European network-level activities addressing the controller workforce challenge and ensuring safe, efficient and resilient air traffic services across the European network amid growing traffic demand.