FAA downgrades Indian aviation safety ratings

In a setback to the Indian aviation sector, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday announced that it had downgraded the country’s aviation safety ranking, bringing it below Pakistan and at par with countries like Ghana, Barbados and Bangladesh, a development that took India by surprise.

Reacting to the downgrade, Civil Aviation Minister, Ajit Singh termed as the step by FAA as "very disappointing and surprising’’ as India had fulfilled 29 out of the 31 issues raised by FAA during inspections last year.

Air passengers to and from the US may have to face the brunt as Indian flights would have to go through more engineering and other safety checks in US. The FAA downgrade means that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) does not meet the safety standards set by UN agency International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The news of the downgrade was conveyed to DGCA head, Prabhat Kumar.

This would bar Air India and Jet Airways from increasing their flights to US from the current level and would not be able to enter into any new code-sharing relationship with any US airline. The move is unlikely to impact the 28-a-week flights (21 of Air India and 7 of Jet Airways) to the US. At present, Air India operates to Chicago and New York while Jet Airways flies only to New York.

Officials in the Civil Aviation Ministry said that this could also have an impact on Air India’s move to join the Star Alliance.

Mr. Singh said India was now 95 per cent compliant with what the FAA had wanted DGCA and the government to do in terms of taking corrective measures. "The remaining five per cent, that is recruitment and training of senior technical personnel in the DGCA, would be completed by March. DGCA will remain in constant touch with FAA which will hopefully hold another review thereafter to revert India to Category I from the downgraded Category II,’’ he added.

FAA conducts the International Aviation Safety Assessment Program (IASA) to assess the civil aviation authorities of each country that has carriers operating to the US. As per the FAA's IASA Programme of November 22 last year, the countries in Category II include Bangladesh, Barbados, Indonesia, Ghana, Serbia and the Philippines. Pakistan is placed in Category I.

Asked whether the US regulator's decision was part of the diplomatic face-off between the two countries over the issue concerning Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, Mr. Singh said: "I don't believe this. There is no connection between the two.’’

Amber Dubey, partner and head (Aerospace and Defence) with global consultancy KPMG said the FAA downgrade is unfortunate but not unexpected. ``Many in the industry had seen it coming. It can have disastrous consequences for both Indian aviation and US based suppliers of aviation and defence equipment. The timing is unfortunate given that India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation is bringing in far-changing policy reforms,’’ he added.