The Federal Aviation Administration in the United States downgraded India’s aviation safety ranking from Category I to Category II, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said Friday.
A Category II ranking means DGCA does not meet international civil aviation standards in areas of “technical expertise, trained personnel and record keeping”.
The downgrade will impact Indian carriers such as Jet Airways and Air India, which fly to the US, barring them from expanding their services further in the world’s biggest aviation market, till further notice.
Apart from impacting US expansion plans of Indian carriers present there, the downgrade also affects code-sharing agreements that companies of Category II countries may have.
Such a rating for a country may lead to other troubles for its carriers as their flights may be subjected to closer scrutiny and checks, which could lead to difficulty in adhering to schedule.
Leasing and borrowing costs for such carriers could also go, putting further stress on their balance sheets.
DGCA staff shortage under scrutiny
The move came even as the FAA had maintained its Category I rating for India when it carried out a first-round audit in September. The US body had then pointed out some concerns, mainly over the DGCA’s shortage of staff.
The under-staffed DGCA had, in a last-minute dash, recently moved to hire full-time pilots from aviation companies as flight operations inspectors, in order to satisfy the FAA’s requirements.
The DGCA had to seek special permission from the aviation ministry to complete the contract-based hiring, in which senior pilots were reportedly paid between Rs 3 lakh and 10 lakh a month.
But the efforts seem to have failed to impress the FAA, which has now downgraded the Indian safety profile to that on par with several African countries after completing the second round of audit in December last year.
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh termed the downgrade as “surprising and disappointing”.
“The US body had suggested raised 31 issues in the September audit, out of which 24 of them have been resolved,” the minister said.
Expert react
“This is a national embarrassment,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO – South Asia at CAPA. The Sydney-based aviation consultancy had in a 2012 study warned of an impending downgrade for DGCA.
The FAA had warned India of a similar downgrade in 2009 as well. “Back then, we made some cosmetic changes to address that. But five years since, from a fundamental perspective, we remained the same,” Kaul said.
Kaul blamed the government’s slow hiring process that has led to the staff shortage at DGCA, the chief reason behind the downgrade. “In 2009, the shortfall was pegged at 500. If DGCA does a current assessment on what is its shortfall, it might be much higher,” he said.
Under the International Convention on Civil Aviation, each country’s regulator is responsible for overseeing the safety profile of its own carriers. The DGCA has recently received audit requests from the US, Japan as well the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the global aviation body.
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