ATC automation: officials yet to get visa to attend training programme in US

Chennai: The move to automate air traffic control at the Chennai airport seems to have hit rough weather as the US consulate is yet to issue visas to the team of 31 air traffic control officials and communication engineers chosen to attend a training programme at Raytheon's facility in the US.
Raytheon has bagged the Rs 42-crore contract for the project and training was scheduled to begin on November 4 and 5. "But the dates were tentative," said a source at the airport.
Selected officials attended interviews at the consulate on different dates in mid-October but they were not issued the visas immediately. The consulate staff told them they would be informed about the status of their applications. It's been over two weeks now but none of them have heard anything from the consulate. An online check shows their applications are pending.
"It seems the consulate has kept all the applications on hold even though Raytheon has vouched for them. The consulate officers did not state any reason for not issuing the visas immediately," said the source.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has now written to the US consulate about the importance of the training programme and asked it to speed up the visa process. AAI is also thinking of refering the issue to the Union civil aviation ministry.
The officials are being taken by Raytheon to its facility in Boston for training in installation, operation and maintenance of the automation procedure at the Chennai airport.
08/11/10 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Nov 2010, Foreign Nov 2010