European Union to review air safety in India in November

European Union will review air safety in India in the light of US Federal Aviation Administration down grading India in February. It has sought details of action taken by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation since February before the review in November.

FAA downgraded India’s safety ranking from category-II from -I after an audit revealed deficiencies in regulatory oversight.

FAA’s decision can have ramifications and now regulators in Europe are stepping up the heat. Any adverse findings could result into Europe imposing operational restrictions or bans on Indian carriers.

European Commission spokesperson Dale Kidd said EU Air Safety Committee in its March meeting decided to invite the Indian authorities for a meeting in Brussels to discuss aviation safety in India, and to brief about actions being undertaken by them.

"The European Commission and the EU Air Safety Committee will then - following the upcoming meeting in November - assess the situation and decide on the best course of action under the various options in the EU Air Safety List regulation,'' he added.

At present Air India flies to London, Birmingham, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan and Rome. Jet Airways flies to London, Brussels and Paris.

Civil aviation ministry officials however are confident that India will soon be back to category I ranking. FAA is likely to visit India in November for a fresh audit, they said.

FAA, in safety audits conducted in September and December last year, had expressed severe concerns over the lack of full-time flight operations inspectors (FOIs) in the DGCA and had subsequently downgraded India to category II of safety rankings.

The DGCA, under its chief Prabhat Kumar, has been working overtime to fast-track processes and meet requirements pointed out by the FAA.

"The FAA had not indicated how many FOIs we need to have on-board. The norm is to have one for every 10 aircraft. We have hired 56 FOIs, 38 of whom have already joined and are in various stages of the training scheduled. With these recruitments we are more than equipped to carry out safety inspections on scheduled, non-scheduled, general aviation aircraft,'' a DGCA official said.

DGCA has also roped in The Wicks Group (TWG) under a bilateral assistance programme funded by the United States Trade and Development Agency to enable India to regain category I status in safety rankings.

TWG has former FAA officials on board and has previously helped countries like Azerbaijan, Cape Verde, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine to upgrade their air safety rankings.