Repair stations under FAA and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) oversight will have updated guidance effective March 19. That is when the new Maintenance Annex Guidance (MAG) signed in November—part of an amended FAA-EASA Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement—-goes into force.

The update, MAG Change 8, includes several new wrinkles. Chief among them is that the guidance now applies equally to all EU countries, following a similar path that EASA’s Annex 1 has taken, the Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA) says.

The MAG also streamlines repair data approval guidance.

“Rather than having the MAG chase the Technical Implementation Procedures (TIP) on this topic (since approval of repair data is handled under the TIP), MAG change 8 simply refers to the TIP for these provisions,” ARSA says. The change eliminates the risk of having different information in the MAG and the TIP—something ARSA says has been an issue in the past.

“Repair stations are responsible for knowing the contents of the TIP as it relates to repair (and alteration) data since those provisions are no longer repeated in the MAG,” the association adds.

The updated MAG also introduces the first references to alteration data. But the addition does not address an industry coalition’s request to have EASA accept FAA minor-alteration data for noncritical components “other than those installed on an aircraft being imported into the EU,” ARSA says. The association joined 15 others in requesting the change before MAG 8 was issued.

The coalition also requested a change to EASA’s single-release form verbiage to eliminate an apparent conflict when specifying parts are eligible only for installation on an EU--registered aircraft. The updated MAG does not address this, either.

“Similar to FAA minor-alteration data . . . the association looks forward to the agencies’ reply in the near future,” ARSA says.