Mumbai: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has written to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) saying that it has completed all the requirements necessary for the latter to upgrade India’s air safety rating back to Category 1. While the original plan was to approach the FAA for a fresh safety audit this month, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India now expects to start the process in August 2014.
Two issues had been remaining as of January this year when the FAA had downgraded the safety rating to Category 2. These were the hiring of “adequate” number of Flight Operations Inspectors (FOIs) and training of airworthiness officers. While the training was completed in March itself, DGCA also selected 35 FOIs for hiring in the first phase, an official said. This month, it will again advertise for posts of 16 more FOIs, Roudra Bhattacharya reported for The Financial Express.
“What the FAA had said was that we need an adequate number of FOIs as per the aircraft fleet of the country. They had not prescribed a number. Our calculation is that we need one FOI per ten planes, and we have about 750 aircraft in the country across both the scheduled and non-scheduled operators,” a DGCA official said.
The official added, “We have selected 35 FOIs, of which 15 are already with us and the rest 20 should join in a month. Some are coming from the Air Force, so they need about 45 days for discharge.”
02/06/14 Travel Biz Monitor
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Two issues had been remaining as of January this year when the FAA had downgraded the safety rating to Category 2. These were the hiring of “adequate” number of Flight Operations Inspectors (FOIs) and training of airworthiness officers. While the training was completed in March itself, DGCA also selected 35 FOIs for hiring in the first phase, an official said. This month, it will again advertise for posts of 16 more FOIs, Roudra Bhattacharya reported for The Financial Express.
“What the FAA had said was that we need an adequate number of FOIs as per the aircraft fleet of the country. They had not prescribed a number. Our calculation is that we need one FOI per ten planes, and we have about 750 aircraft in the country across both the scheduled and non-scheduled operators,” a DGCA official said.
The official added, “We have selected 35 FOIs, of which 15 are already with us and the rest 20 should join in a month. Some are coming from the Air Force, so they need about 45 days for discharge.”
02/06/14 Travel Biz Monitor
