With AIN Media Group's Aviation International News and its predecessor Aviation Convention News; celebrating the company's 50th year of continuous publication this year, AIN’s editorial staff is going back through the archives each month to bring readers some interesting events that were covered over the past half-century.

REWIND: (May 2004) The newly-formed European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is crafting a pricing policy for the certifications it can now grant. On April 15 in Paris, EASA executive director Patrick Goudou presented the outlines of this policy, as well as details on the agency’s growth. In the European Union, EASA is slowly taking over from the JAA. EASA, which currently only has 40 employees, is temporarily based in Brussels, though it will eventually move to permanent headquarters in Cologne, Germany.

FASTFORWARD: EASA succeeded the JAA (Joint Aviation Authorities) which was not a regulatory body and which delegated aviation regulations to the individual member state authorities. The creation of EASA streamlined that process into a single regulatory and certification entity that could interface with other international aviation organizations and regulators such as the FAA in the U.S., with one voice. Today its more than 800 employees serve the aviation needs of 31 countries: the 27 EU members plus Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland.