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Aviation|Business|Environment|Safety|System|Training|transport|Maintenance|Operations
Aviation|Business|Environment|Safety|System|Training|transport|Maintenance|Operations
aviation|business|environment|safety|system|training|transport|maintenance|operations

Airline body thanks regulators for showing flexibility

23rd March 2020

By: Rebecca Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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The global airline industry’s representative organisation, the International Air Transport Association (Iata), has expressed gratitude to aviation regulators around the world for showing flexibility regarding non-safety-critical regulations, in order to support air transport around the world. Worldwide, airlines have been severely affected by a collapse in passenger numbers, forcing the grounding of many aircraft, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Safety is the industry’s top priority,” stressed Iata senior VP: safety and flight operations Gilberto Lopez Meyer. “Countries have a well-established licensing system to ensure this. Airlines and their employees are facing an unprecedented challenge in coping with the business and operational impacts of the Covid-19 crisis. In this extraordinarily difficult environment, we are grateful for actions to ease regulatory requirements that do not impact the safety of flights.”

Iata cited several regulators as exemplifying this flexibility. They were the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Mexico’s Agencia Federal de Aviación Civil (AFAC) and the United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA).

For example, AFAC has extended the validity of licences, permits and/or certificates for technical personnel for three months. CAA has instituted a procedure which allows pilot and cabin crew validity requirements to be extended. CAAC has acknowledged the requirement to be flexible regarding classroom training and the carrying out of recurrent training obligations; it has also allowed the extension of the validity periods for pilot, engineer, cabin crew and dispatcher training.

Similarly, EASA has issued templates to allow the national regulators of its member States to inform it if they are applying any flexibility in regulations; this permits the extension of licence, ratings, endorsement, certificate and attestation validity periods for aircrew, aircraft maintenance licence holders, air traffic controllers, instructors and examiners; the extension of Airworthiness Review Certificates is also allowed. The GCAA is allowing flexibility for flight crew and cabin crew licences, ratings, and certificates validity periods.

“Aviation is built on partnership and working together,” affirmed Lopez Meyer. “The actions taken by these regulators will provide airlines and licensed crew with the necessary flexibility for licence extensions without compromising safety. We urge others to quickly follow suit and grant similar short-term relief.”

Iata itself is also showing flexibility. Given that travel restrictions and other Covid-19-related issues can make it impossible for Iata auditors to visit airlines to carry out the Iata Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), Iata is offering IOSA validity extensions for up to six months. However, airlines granted such extensions will have to fill in an IOSA questionnaire at least once every 60 days during the extension.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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