At the Paris Air Show, Daher-Socata and Voldirect, a small charter company with six employees, might have made history. The two jointly announced that the French civil aviation authority has officially awarded Voldirect an Air Operators Certificate (AOC) enabling the company to fly commercial passengers on its TBM 850 turboprop single.
As U.S. vice president Joe Biden might say, this is a big … deal. Until now, single-engine IFR commercial ops in Europe were not permitted. True, Voldirect’s IFR round trips must launch and recover on the return leg at the same French airport with all the same passengers, but it’s a start. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is said to be considering adopting the allowance throughout Europe, matching the regulations currently in place in the U.S. and Canada, where single-engine commercial IFR is permitted.
