“According to EU regulations 2021/12174 and 2021/12245, carriers will have the legal obligation to query EES and ETIAS to receive answers regarding the status of travelers.” 6
Per Article 2.14 Schengen Borders Code 7, “A ‘Carrier’ is any natural or legal person whose profession it is to provide transport of persons.” 8
“The obligation to query the interface (for which registration is needed) is for carriers as defined in the CISA (Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement). This involves a professional activity, i.e. the carriers is transporting passengers through a fee.”
Private Chartered
“A flight that is chartered by a private individual or organization and is operated by a commercial charter operator. A charter operator operates under Commercial aviation rules CAT and hold an AOC and are filed as N (Non-scheduled air service) on the ICAO Flight plan. For third country operators need a TCO (Third Country Operator) approval from EASA to operate within the EU.”
- Private chartered operators need to comply with EES and ETIAS obligations, query the carrier interface and respectively to register with eu-LISA.
Private Managed
“The aircraft is owned by a private individual or organization, and are managed by a professional operator but only for the use of the owner. Managed means in this respect that crew, maintenance, handling and all aspects of conducting a flight is done by a management company but the flights are not open for the public and are only conducted on the aircraft owners behalf.”
- Private managed operators need to comply with EES and ETIAS obligations, query the carrier interface and respectively to register with eu-LISA.
Private Operated
“The aircraft is owned by a private individual or organization. Crew is hired directly by the aircraft owner and flights are not open for public use/charter.
Crew is professional/semi professional and flights are operated under NCC/NCO rules and are filed as G (General Aviation) Using another transport mode this can be compared to a private car with a professional/hired driver.”
- Private operated with a crew hired directed do not need to comply with EES and ETIAS obligations.
**With the above being stated, eu-LISA is currently working with NBAA and the BGA community to further clarify which aircraft operators are required to register and who will ultimately be exempt.**