In what could be seen as
the first positive impact of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the
United States on the Indian aviation sector, India’s embarrassing
downgrade by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) earlier this
year could be revoked, with the FAA team slated to carry out another
inspection on December 8 this year.
This also comes in the
backdrop of a three-member team visiting Brussels in the first week of
November for a meeting with officials of the EU Air Safety Committee to
discuss measures taken by the Indian aviation regulator, Directorate
General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), to improve its performance after the
FAA downgrade.
Finding regulatory
oversight to be inadequate, the FAA had downgraded India from Category 1
to Category 2 under its International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA)
program on January 31 earlier this year. The move has barred Air India
and Jet Airways — the only two Indian airlines that operate to the US —
from expanding their operations in the US and impacted codeshare
arrangements with their American counterparts.
The DGCA needed to
recruit 20 officials – chief flight operations inspectors (CFOI) — to
deal with the staff shortage pertaining to Air India and Jet Airways. To
improve it’s overall safety record, however, it needed to recruit 75
CFOIs.
“We have already
recruited 56 new inspectors, of which 39 have already joined work, and
the rest will join by next week. Applications are under process for rest
of the 16 positions; and all 75 positions would be filled by November
16,” a senior DGCA official told The Indian Express.
While operations by
Indian air carriers to and from EU are closely monitored through their
Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft program (SAFA), the FAA’s
downgrade essentially meant that the DGCA was below par in meeting
standards in technical expertise, trained manpower and maintenance
records of air safety. It did not have skilled technical staff in the
organization.
“The FAA downgrade has a
cascading effect, and the EU had raised concerns over the downgrade and
the measures taken by the DGCA to better its performance. A DGCA team
headed by Joint Director General Lalit Gupta will visit Brussels in the
first week of November for a meeting with officials of the EU Air Safety
Committee to discuss the measures taken,” an official said.
A Category 2 rating by
the FAA has made India one of the 16 countries out of a total of 88 that
have been assessed under IASA; the 16 include Bangladesh, Ghana,
Indonesia, the Philippines and Nicaragua.
- Source: http://indianexpress.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment