Part-ORA is the EASA regulation setting organisational requirements for aircrew training organisations — management systems, nominated personnel, compliance monitoring, facilities and record-keeping. Together with Part-FCL (what is trained), Part-ORA defines how an ATO must be structured and run.
Part-ORA (Organisation Requirements for Aircrew) is the EASA regulation defining how organisations that train aircrew must be structured and run. Where Part-FCL defines what is trained (licences, ratings, courses), Part-ORA defines the organisation delivering it: management system and accountable manager, nominated postholders (Head of Training, Chief Flight Instructor, Compliance Monitoring Manager, Safety Manager as applicable), facilities, record-keeping duties, and the compliance monitoring and safety management systems ATOs must operate.
Part-ORA is where most ATO audit findings actually land — not in flying standards but in organisational conformity: records retention, document control, internal audit schedules, management-of-change when key personnel or facilities shift. The DTO regime exists precisely as relief from Part-ORA's full weight for non-commercial training.
Why it matters for flight schools
Understanding Part-ORA reframes what an ATO approval is: not a badge for good instruction but a commitment to run a defined organisational machine, continuously, under oversight. The postholder structure has teeth — changes require authority acceptance, and vacancies create compliance exposure — and the record-keeping duties (student records at least three years beyond completion, organised and retrievable) are the audit surface schools most often fail on. Growth events (new base, new course, new HT) are all Part-ORA change processes, not just business decisions.
How FlightLogger handles it
FlightLogger operationalises the Part-ORA duties that generate findings — complete retrievable training records, syllabus-conformant documentation, oversight data for the HT and CMM — so organisational compliance is a by-product of daily operations.
Frequently asked questions
What is the relationship between Part-ORA and Part-FCL?
Part-FCL defines the licences, ratings and training content; Part-ORA defines the organisational requirements for the ATOs delivering that training. An ATO must satisfy both — the course lives in FCL, the school lives in ORA.
Which postholders must an ATO nominate?
At minimum an accountable manager and Head of Training, with a Compliance Monitoring Manager for the management system; depending on size and scope, additional nominated persons such as Chief Flight Instructor, Chief Theoretical Knowledge Instructor and Safety Manager. Appointments require authority acceptance.