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In a dampener for India’s aviation sector, the country might have to wait a bit longer for an upgrade of its air safety rating by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Business Standard has learnt from official sources.
The main reason is that our regulator, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has been able to appoint only about 45 Flight Operations Inspectors (FOIs), despite the Union Cabinet approving appointments of 75 FOIs at market-linked salaries over a year earlier.
Aviation ministry officials now expect an upgrade only around April, the second such delay. This is also subject to a visit by an FAA team in end-March and their being satisfied. After a visit by an FAA team in December, the ministry said it was confident of an upgrade by January, during US President Barack Obama's visit. It had then revised this to March.
“Right now, the US consultant, The Wicks Group, is working hard with the DGCA team to complete all formalities before the FAA team visit next month. When the team visited in December, it had found two deficiencies. Inadequate number of FOIs was the main problem,” a ministry official said.
DGCA has hastened the appointment process for new FOIs by publishing several job vacancy advertisements on its website this month, offering up to 24 positions. The first vacancy circular on February 3 offered up to 21 posts for a three-year initial term. A second circular dated February 10 offers three more positions as consultants for a year.
“Our target is to have one FOI for every 10 aircraft in the country; hence, the calculation of 75 posts. However, we are facing problems in hiring, both because of a lack of applicants with the right experience and also because many applicants are not able to leave their jobs early enough,” a DGCA official said.
The downgrade problem began in September 2013 after an FAA audit of DGCA, conducted under the US agency’s International Aviation Safety Assessment programme. it had raised 31 areas of concern. FAA then declared that India was not in compliance with the international standards as codified under the Chicago Convention.
By January 2014, the FAA said the Indian government and DGCA had not resolved two of the negative findings, leading it to classify India’s air safety rating to Category 2. Apart from hurting business sentiment, the downgrade largely meant Indian carriers such as Air India and Jet Airways could not add any new US flights, while existing ones could face random FAA checks on US soil.
FAA’s main issue was hiring “adequate” FOIs on market-competitive salaries and not on deputation from airlines. It said the temporary hiring of FOIs from airlines led to a clear conflict of interest and, thus, inadequate safety oversight by DGCA.
On its advice, DGCA also enlisted the services of The Wicks Group, in June 2014. This was to help prepare for a fresh FAA safety review and identify areas of potential concern. Apart from hiring of FOIs, the regulator has made several other changes in the process of giving Air Operator Permits (AOP) to airlines. This had led to delays in the AOP process for Tata-SIA’s Vistara, while others Air India and Jet had to go through a complete re-certification in November-December.
