There is a fair bit of suspicious behaviour around this.
There was the legal action in Australia, alleging that Jepp were ripping off their CAA’s intellectual property. It was settled confidentially and astonishingly no information about the settlement has ever leaked.
A few years ago I spoke to the head of charting of the UK CAA and asked him why they don’t produce their terminal charts in A5 format and suitable for cockpit use, like the FAA does. He replied that the CAA is not in the business of competing with commercial providers – an astonishing reply no matter which way you roll it. He also said he is very familiar with the details of the Australian case which to me suggests that all the European CAAs know what happened.
I wonder if they have all struck deals with Jepp, whereby Jepp pay a royalty and in exchange for that the CAAs continue to publish the very poor A4 charts.
If Jepp don’t pay anything, then I cannot understand what the confidential Australian settlement could possibly have been about. What could have been the quid pro quo?
Normally, secrecy is imposed to avoid publicity over some embarrassment, a controversial/dishonest conflict of interest (what some call a conspiracy but actually it happens all the time in business), a business deal which you want to keep exclusive, etc.
Also I cannot understand why a “CAA” whose mandate is “safety” is so blatently against publishing the data in a directly usable format, and when asked Why they justify it in terms which are straight out of Yes Minister.
I have wondered the same thing. However, I am not sure that the CAA’s need money to produce documents in a form that is close to unreadable. Although it could explain a number of strange and hard to understand products.
I have never heard about the Australia case, but I HAVE seen Australian CAA charts and wondered how Jeppesen would be able to improve on those and make pilots pay for a better presentation.
It must be perfectly legal to fly using AIP charts, but once I got myself into bad trouble trying to fly a Bromma STAR using CAA material. Apart from the very small print on the A4 pages, corresponding altitudes and headings were on separate pages!
I don’t believe it possible that every CAA in the world has a secret deal with Jeppesen and no one ever leaks anything.
Also I cannot understand why a “CAA” whose mandate is “safety” is so blatently against publishing the data in a directly usable format, and when asked Why they justify it in terms which are straight out of Yes Minister.
I believe this is because of the privatisation fad. Governments are simply not supposed to provide useful information anymore. Railways have Route Books with similar function as the AIP in aviation. The Swedish regulation since a few years is that every rail operator should produce their own – the role of the government administration is only to provide the factual basis. Of course before deregulation, the government through the Swedish State Railways have always produced the Route Book and after deregulation the Railway Administration still produces it although it is no longer called a Route Book but a “basis” for a Route Book. It still looks exactly the same so it can still be used operationally and I would wager that all operators just copy it. But who knows – someday someone may decide that this is “competing with commercial providers” and just provide a database which is unusable operationally.
Apart from the very small print on the A4 pages …
Try to use Italian AIP charts 
… corresponding altitudes and headings were on separate pages!
It’s usual for AIP SIDs.
