1.4 Licence Validity, Renewal, Re-Issue & Re-Establishing Qualification

Validity: five years, but one year of inactivity kills it

Nig. CARs 2.5.1.3(h) contains three separate statements that candidates must not merge:

• "The validity period of the licence is 5 years."
• "A licence shall become invalid when a cabin crew has ceased to exercise the privileges of the licence for a period of 1 year."
• "A licence shall remain invalid until the cabin crew's ability to exercise the privileges of the licence has been re-established."

So there are two clocks. The document expires at five years. The privilege dies after twelve months of not flying, even if the document still shows two years to run. A crew member who takes a fifteen-month career break holds a piece of paper that is in date and invalid at the same time.

Renewal: the 12-calendar-month cycle

2.5.1.3(i) requires the licence to be renewed by presenting to the Authority:

1. Evidence of satisfactorily passing a competency check on the areas of operation contained in Part 8; and
2. Record of satisfactory completion of recurrent ground curricula training conducted by an AOC holder or ATO on the aircraft type rating(s) and emergency drills approved by the Authority, relevant to the type(s) and/or variant(s) and operations to which the crew member is assigned, within the preceding 12 calendar months.

Part 8 imposes the same two obligations directly on the operator and the individual, phrased as service bars:

The five mandatory elements of recurrent ground training under 8.10.1.34 are worth memorising as a list, because they are examinable as a set:

1. Aircraft-specific configuration, equipment and procedures;
2. Joint emergency equipment and drills training with flight crew;
3. Joint CRM with flight crew and flight operations officers (FOOs);
4. Recognition or transportation of dangerous goods;
5. Security training.

Two of the five are explicitly joint with the flight deck. A recurrent programme that trains cabin crew in isolation does not meet 8.10.1.34.

"Since the beginning of the 12th calendar month before that service" is a calendar-month construction, not a rolling 365 days. A check completed at any point in, say, August 2026 remains valid for service through the whole of August 2027.

Before you can be a required crew member: supervised line experience

Nig. CARs 8.10.1.28 requires each person qualifying as a cabin crew member to perform those functions under the supervision of a check person before qualifying as a required crew member:

• Reciprocating-engine or turbopropeller powered aircraft — a minimum of two flights that shall include at least 5 hours flown;
• Turbojet powered aircraft — a minimum of two flights.

Both routes require two flights; only the propeller route carries the additional five-hour floor. On an ATR 72 or Dash 8 operation, two short domestic sectors may satisfy the flight count without satisfying the hours.

Coming back: the inactivity ladder and the re-issue ladder

Two different ladders exist and they are often confused. One is in Part 8 and restores operational qualification; the other is in Part 2 and restores the licence document.

Part 8 (8.10.1.34) — inactivity ladder for the required crew member:

Part 2 (2.5.1.3(j)) — re-issue ladder for an expired licence:

Read the second ladder literally in the examination: the regulation as drafted addresses lapses of under six months, of more than two but not more than ten years, and of more than ten years. It does not spell out a band between six months and two years, so a candidate faced with that scenario should reason from the surrounding provisions — and from 2.5.1.3(h), under which a licence unused for a year is invalid until ability is re-established — rather than invent a rule.

The myth to unlearn

There is no takeoff-and-landing recency requirement for cabin crew anywhere in Nig. CARs. The familiar "three takeoffs and landings in the preceding 90 days" is a pilot requirement for carrying passengers. For cabin crew, currency is expressed entirely as: a competency check and recurrent ground curricula within 12 calendar months, supervised line experience before first qualifying, and the one-year inactivity rule on the licence itself. Candidates who import pilot recency into a cabin crew answer lose marks.