The cabin crew attestation is the European safety qualification that lets you work as cabin crew on commercial flights. This guide covers what it is, who actually needs one, what stays valid and what quietly expires, what it costs, and where the rules differ by country, with the regulation article behind each answer.
How to get one| Common names | Cabin crew attestation, CCA, EASA attestation |
|---|---|
| Created by | Annex V (Part-CC) to Commission Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 |
| Required for | Cabin crew in commercial air transport (ORO.CC.210) |
| Minimum age | 18 (CC.GEN.020) |
| Issued by | The national aviation authority, or an organisation approved by it (CC.CCA.100) |
| Duration | Unlimited (CC.CCA.105) |
| Lapses after | 60 months without exercising the privileges (CC.CCA.105) |
| Recognised across the EU | Yes, with no exchange or conversion |
| Typical private course cost | Roughly 1,500 to 3,000 euros, varying widely by country |
| Typical course length | Roughly 2 to 6 weeks of full time training |
The cabin crew attestation is the document proving you completed an approved initial safety training course and passed the examination that follows it, and it is what permits you to work as cabin crew on a commercial flight in the European Union.
It is created by Annex V to Commission Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011, known throughout the industry as Part-CC. Part-CC was not in the original 2011 text. It was inserted by Commission Regulation (EU) No 290/2012, which is why the cabin crew rules carry a slightly later start date than the pilot licensing rules in the same regulation. The scope provision, CC.GEN.005, is one sentence long: the Part establishes the requirements for issuing cabin crew attestations and the conditions for their validity and use.
Two clarifications are worth making early, because almost every misunderstanding about the attestation traces back to one of them.
It is not a licence. Pilots hold licences with ratings that are revalidated on a fixed cycle. Cabin crew hold an attestation, which is a record that a standard of training was met. Nothing about the document itself needs renewing, and there is no expiry date printed on it.
It does not qualify you on an aircraft. The attestation is generic. Before you can operate on a particular aircraft type you also need type specific training, operator conversion training and familiarisation, all of which are run by the airline that employs you and all of which are covered by a different regulation. CC.TRA.225 makes this explicit: holders of a valid attestation may only operate on an aircraft if they are also qualified under Part-ORO. The attestation gets you to the door. The airline's own training gets you onto the aeroplane.
You need one if you work as cabin crew in commercial air transport. If the flight is not a commercial air transport operation, the attestation is not legally required, and this is where a surprising amount of European cabin crew work actually sits.
The privileges clause, CC.GEN.025, says the privileges of an attestation holder are to act as a cabin crew member in commercial air transport operations. The matching duty falls on the operator through ORO.CC.210 in Regulation (EU) No 965/2012, which states that cabin crew shall only be assigned to duties and operate on a particular aircraft type or variant if they hold a valid attestation issued under Part-CC, are qualified on the type, comply with the rest of the Subpart and Part-CAT, and wear the operator's uniform.
The detail that matters is where that rule sits. Subpart CC is split in two. Section 1 carries the common requirements applying to all operations with cabin crew, including minimum age and the medical. Section 2 carries the additional requirements that apply exclusively to commercial air transport. ORO.CC.210 is in Section 2. That is the legal reason the attestation requirement stops at the boundary of commercial air transport rather than covering everyone who works in a cabin.
| Type of operation | Attestation required |
|---|---|
| Scheduled and charter passenger flights under an air operator certificate | Yes. This is commercial air transport, so ORO.CC.210 applies in full. |
| Business and VIP flights sold commercially under an air operator certificate | Yes. A luxury cabin does not change the category. If the flight is sold, it is commercial air transport. |
| Corporate and private flight departments under Part-NCC | No. These are non-commercial operations, so the Section 2 requirement does not reach them. |
| Private and general aviation | No. |
It is the nature of the operation that decides, never the aircraft. A corporate operator flying its owner's aircraft under Part-NCC is not obliged to employ attested cabin crew, and in practice many still ask for the attestation because it is the cleanest available evidence that a candidate has completed recognised safety training. Guidance from national authorities takes the same line: where a crew member holds a valid attestation, an operator running non-commercial flights may accept it and keep a copy on file. Accepted, not required. If a candidate has no attestation, that operator has to deliver the Part-CC training content itself.
Nine subjects, listed in Appendix 1 to Part-CC. Every approved initial course in Europe teaches the same nine, which is precisely why dangerous goods and aviation security appear on every cabin crew syllabus rather than being specialist extras.
Appendix 1 sets the content, not the clock. It says the training programme shall include at least these subjects and shall contain both theoretical and practical training. It prescribes no minimum hours, which is the single biggest reason course lengths differ so much between providers and between countries.
| Subject | What it covers |
|---|---|
| 1. Aviation theory and regulations | Terminology, theory of flight, passenger distribution, areas of operation, meteorology, surface contamination, the regulations relevant to cabin crew, duties and responsibilities, flight and duty time limitations, manuals and briefings, and the authority to initiate an evacuation. |
| 2. Communication | Effective communication between cabin crew and flight crew, including technique, common language and shared terminology. |
| 3. Human factors and CRM | An introductory course delivered by at least one cabin crew CRM instructor. Human performance and limitations, personality awareness, human error, attitudes and behaviour, stress, fatigue and vigilance, assertiveness, situational awareness. |
| 4. Passenger handling and cabin surveillance | Seat allocation against mass and balance, special categories of passenger, unsupervised exits, baggage stowage, intoxicated and aggressive passengers, live animals, turbulence, and crowd control during an evacuation. |
| 5. Aero-medical aspects and first aid | Physiology of flight, hypoxia, barotrauma, basic first aid, in flight medical emergencies from asthma to stroke and heart attack, first aid oxygen and medical kits, practical resuscitation on a dummy, travel health and hygiene. |
| 6. Dangerous goods | Taught in accordance with the applicable ICAO Technical Instructions. |
| 7. Aviation security | General security aspects, including awareness of the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 300/2008. |
| 8. Fire and smoke | Identifying the actual source of a fire, informing the flight crew, checking fire risk areas, classes of fire and extinguishing agents, live fire fighting practice, donning and using smoke protection equipment. |
| 9. Survival | Survival in hostile environments, and water survival that includes actually donning flotation equipment in water and using a slide raft, with real practice in water. |
The wet drill in subject 9 and the live fire and smoke exercises in subject 8 are the reason an initial course cannot be completed online. Whatever theory a provider delivers remotely, the practical phase has to happen in a pool and a smoke chamber.
Yes. CC.TRA.220 requires an examination covering every element of the training programme with one stated exception: CRM training is excluded from the examination.
That exception is not a loophole. Crew resource management is assessed against behavioural markers by a CRM instructor during the course rather than through written questions, which is why it sits outside the examination while remaining a compulsory part of the syllabus. Everything else in Appendix 1 is examinable, and CC.CCA.100 makes the attestation conditional on passing: attestations are issued only to applicants who have passed the examination following completion of the initial training course.
Format is left to the national authority, so the paper differs from one country to the next.
Indefinitely. CC.CCA.105 states that the attestation is issued with unlimited duration and remains valid unless one of two things happens.
So there is no renewal, no revalidation fee and no expiry date to diarise. The only way the document itself dies quietly is five years away from commercial flying. Take three years out and come back, and the attestation is still yours.
This is where nearly everyone gets confused, because plenty of cabin crew have been told their attestation expires annually. What expires annually is something else entirely.
Recurrent training, checks, type recency and the medical. All four run on their own clocks, all four are shorter than the attestation's 60 months, and all four will ground you long before the attestation is at risk.
These requirements live in Regulation (EU) No 965/2012, not in the attestation regulation, and they are the operator's responsibility to schedule. Practically, this is what an airline means when it asks whether you are current.
| Requirement | Article | How the clock runs |
|---|---|---|
| The attestation itself | CC.CCA.105 | Unlimited. Lapses only after 60 months without exercising the privileges. |
| Recurrent training and checking | ORO.CC.140 | Annual. Valid for 12 calendar months counted from the end of the month in which the check was taken. |
| Three yearly training elements | ORO.CC.140 | Certain items, such as actually operating emergency exits and slide rafts, are required every 36 calendar months rather than every year. |
| Aircraft type recency | CC.TRA.225 | You must have operated on the type within the preceding 6 months, or complete refresher training and checking before operating it again. |
| Refresher training | ORO.CC.145 | Triggered by 6 months without flying duties inside the validity period of the last recurrent check. |
| Aero-medical assessment | MED.C.005 | Before first assignment to duties, then at intervals of no more than 60 months. |
One detail in ORO.CC.140 is worth knowing because it protects you rather than catching you out. If you complete recurrent training and checking within the final three months of the current validity period, the new period is counted from the original expiry date, not from the date of the check. You do not lose the months you paid for by being early.
Yes, but not a pilot style medical certificate. Cabin crew undergo an aero-medical assessment and receive a cabin crew medical report issued under MED.C.030.
MED.C.005 sets the timing: an assessment before you are first assigned to duties on an aircraft, and after that at intervals of no more than 60 months. The assessment is carried out by an aero-medical examiner or an aero-medical centre, and in some member states by an occupational health medical practitioner where the conditions in Part-MED are met.
The report states the date of the assessment, whether you were assessed fit or unfit, the date the next assessment falls due, and any limitations that apply. The purpose is narrow and written into the rule: to verify that cabin crew are free from any physical or mental condition that might lead to incapacitation or an inability to perform assigned safety duties.
The medical is not part of the attestation and does not appear on it. You can hold a perfectly valid attestation and still be unable to fly because the medical has lapsed, which is another reason the two are worth keeping separate in your head.
Either the national aviation authority, or a training organisation the authority has approved to issue it. CC.CCA.100 permits both, and each member state decides which model it uses.
This one clause explains most of the confusion people run into when they compare notes across borders. Two crew can describe completely different processes and both be describing correct practice, because their countries picked different options.
The document itself is standardised regardless of route. Part-ARA specifies a standard European format for cabin crew attestations, which is why an attestation issued in one country is legible to an airline in another.
Yes. An attestation issued in one EU or EASA member state is valid and recognised in all of them, with no further requirements, no evaluation and no exchange of the document.
EASA states this directly in its own guidance for crew moving between operators in different member states, and the legal basis is mutual recognition under Article 67 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, the current Basic Regulation, read with the definitions in Article 3. In plain terms, a Spanish attestation works at an Irish airline, and a Polish one works at an Italian airline, without you filing anything with the new country's authority.
Three qualifications are worth knowing before you rely on it.
Through a private training organisation, expect somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 euros and between two and six weeks. If an airline hires you and trains you, the course normally costs you nothing.
Those are genuine ranges rather than a price list. Because Appendix 1 fixes the subjects but not the hours, providers build very different courses around the same syllabus, and the pool and smoke chamber facilities a school has to hire are a large part of what you pay for. Any site quoting one European price for the attestation is guessing.
| Variable | Effect |
|---|---|
| Country | The largest single factor. Fees track local training costs, and the national authority's own charge for issuing the document is separate and usually modest. |
| Delivery format | Blended courses that put theory online and compress the practical phase run shortest, sometimes around two weeks. Fully classroom based courses run longer. |
| What the fee includes | Examination fees, the practical wet drill, the medical and the authority's issue fee are sometimes bundled and sometimes billed separately. Compare on the total. |
| Airline sponsored route | No course fee. The airline pays for initial training as part of hiring you, and you are usually paid or partly paid during it. |
Either an airline hires you and trains you, or you pay for an approved initial course yourself and arrive holding the attestation already. Both routes lead to the same document with the same standing. The first is how most European cabin crew get theirs, and it costs nothing.
The most common route by a wide margin, and the cheapest, because the operator carries the cost of initial training as part of recruiting you. Airlines with the appropriate approval run the Part-CC initial course themselves and put successful candidates forward for the attestation.
Many European airlines recruit with no previous flying experience and no attestation required, because they intend to train you from scratch anyway.
The nine Appendix 1 subjects, taught to the same standard as any school would teach them, including the live fire drills and the wet drill.
Issued by the national authority or by an approved organisation. It belongs to you, not to the airline, and you keep it if you leave.
Type specific training, operator conversion and familiarisation follow separately. Only after those can you operate a revenue flight.
Slower to pay for and faster to start. You fund an approved initial course yourself, which removes the training cost from an airline's decision and lets you apply to operators that expect an attestation on day one, including smaller carriers and seasonal recruiters.
The course must be an approved Part-CC initial course. Ask which national authority granted the approval and confirm it with that authority directly.
Theory may be partly remote. The pool session, the smoke chamber and the fire fighting drills cannot be, so check where the practical phase happens.
Covering all nine subjects except CRM.
Issued by the authority or the approved school, with unlimited duration, and recognised in every other member state without conversion.
No. A licence is issued to an individual and carries privileges that are revalidated on a fixed cycle. The cabin crew attestation is a training attestation: it records that you passed the examination following an approved initial course under Part-CC, and it is issued with unlimited duration. What has to be kept current is the training around it, not the attestation itself.
Not on a date. Under CC.CCA.105 it is issued with unlimited duration and stays valid unless the authority suspends or revokes it, or unless you go 60 months without exercising the privileges on at least one aircraft type. There is no renewal fee and no expiry date printed on it.
Yes. An attestation issued in one EU or EASA member state is recognised in all of them, with no exchange, revalidation or conversion needed. The mutual recognition comes from Article 67 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139. What does not transfer is your aircraft type qualification, which is tied to the operator you fly for.
It depends on how the flight is operated, not on the aircraft. Business and VIP flights sold commercially under an air operator certificate are commercial air transport, so ORO.CC.210 applies and an attestation is required. Genuinely non-commercial corporate flying under Part-NCC sits outside that requirement, though many operators ask for an attestation anyway because it is the cleanest evidence of safety training.
Through a private training organisation, roughly 1,500 to 3,000 euros depending on the country and on what the fee includes. If an airline hires you first and trains you, the initial course normally costs you nothing. Authority fees for issuing the document are separate and usually small. These are ranges rather than quotes, and they move.
Roughly 2 to 6 weeks of full time training at most private schools. The regulation sets no minimum number of hours, only the subjects listed in Appendix 1 to Part-CC, so the length is set by the provider and the national authority.
Yes. You can pay for an approved initial course yourself, sit the examination, and hold the attestation independently of any employer. It is not tied to an operator and needs no airline sponsorship. The alternative is to be hired first and let the airline run the initial course, which is how most cabin crew in Europe get theirs.
No. Registration asks whether you hold one. You can answer yes or not yet. Airlines can filter by it.
Airlines can filter the database by attestation. If you hold one, say so when you register.
If you do not hold one, you can still register.
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