Civil Aviation Authority

While aviation is exhilarating, exciting and a great form of transportation, there are often misconceptions on the level of danger involved. On the other hand, considering the danger without the proper facts can make piloting seem overly intimidating. Just like many other activities, there are risks associated with flight. Here are some comparisons, to put it in perspective.

In 2009, there were a total of 1,551 civil aviation accidents in the United States. The term civil aviation refers to all non-military, non-scheduled flights, so that number includes some smaller commercial flights. Of those accidents, less than 18 percent were fatal, resulting in 534 total civil aviation-related deaths for the year, according to the National Transport Safety Board. Keep in mind extensive training including at least 20 hours of flight time with a licensed instructor is required to become a pilot.

By comparison, in 2007 there were 10.6 million motor vehicle accidents in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly half of those were fatal, resulting in 41.1 million total deaths. That includes motorcycle accidents, which resulted in 5.2 million of those deaths. As most Americans are aware, to obtain a driver's license a person must pass a written exam and a driving test with an instructor, but safety courses are not requires in most states. For a motorcycle license, a person must complete a safety course. Course length varies by state, but is an average of 15 hours or fewer.

Any activity performed under the guidance of an expert or with a rigorous safety course will result in fewer accidents. When learning to pilot a plane, you are given one-on-one training with a professional instructor until you are comfortable handling the plane on your own. Don't let anxiety about the risk discourage you from pursuing aviation. Keep in mind that statistically, driving an automobile is much more dangerous, and that just like driving, the more practiced and attentive you are, the safer your journey will be.

"We will look into the interest of the aam admi and there will be no exorbitant fares," civil aviation minister Praful Patel said.

The airlines' proposal, made to sector regulator Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), relates to peak fares — which apply only if tickets are bought on the day of travel or the day before.

"The DGCA is looking into the matter. If a proposal has come, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be approved," Patel said. He added that the DGCA had issued notices to the airlines over the exorbitant upper-band fares they had proposed.

Under the airlines' proposal, the peak fare ranges between Rs 10,500 and Rs 40,000 over four distance bands: up to 750km; 750-1,000km; 1,000-1,400km and above 1,400 km.

The peak-fare band proposed for the 750-1,000km slab ranges between Rs 14,550 and Rs 19,500; while it is Rs 17,000 to Rs 25,000 for the next slab.

DGCA officials said the proposed fares were likely to be dismissed out of hand and airlines asked to "come to their senses".

If the airlines persisted in trying to raise fares, civil aviation officials said, "relevant authorities could well initiate probes and action against what we may view as cartel-like action".

The officials warned that licences could be given to new airlines to operate on Metro routes to break any "cartel-like situation". Allowing new players in telecom has led to lowering of tariffs.

Analysts said the proposed rates were too high and would make business unviable for most airlines, especially the low-cost ones.

"On major routes, high peak fares would result in traffic moving to the railways," said Robin Pathak, former Indian Airlines director and aviation sector analyst.

Airlines pointed out that the proposed price bands were only for peak fares. "The average price is much lower if the tickets are bought in advance," an airline official said.

For instance, if you now book a ticket for December 23 on a New Delhi-Calcutta flight, the price can be as low as Rs 4,030 on a low-cost airline. A ticket for tomorrow's flight could, however, cost around Rs 17,000.

The country's domestic airlines — including IndiGo Airlines SpiceJet, Jet Airways Konnect, JetLite, GoAir and Air India — have submitted the peak price bands in response to a DGCA directive last month to provide fare information on the first of each month.

The DGCA had issued its circular after fares on some routes, like Delhi-Mumbai, shot up by 300 per cent in November because of a demand-supply mismatch. The circular asked each airline to "furnish a copy of the route-wise tariff across its network in various fare categories... on the first day of every calendar month".

Pradeep Baijal, head of the Federation of Indian Airlines, said: "FIA does not discuss fares.... Fares are decided by individual airlines." Jet Airways refused comment on the proposed fare hikes while other airlines sought time to react.

Aviation sector analyst Sudipto Sen said: "Airlines have been ratcheting up fares in response to increasing demands.... However, we estimate that once Air India, Indigo, SpiceJet and Jet manage to get deliveries of ordered planes, there could be over-capacity on many routes, sharply bringing down the fares."

Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, wants to double its flights to India following highly successful bilateral agreement between top aviation officials of Bahrain and India.

The agreement between Bahrain’s civil aviation affairs and their Indian counterpart gives Gulf Air operating rights to Hyderabad on a daily basis. It also grants the airline additional rights for daily services to Kochi and Kolkata.

The agreement which was concluded after two-day discussions between the civil aviation authorities from India and Bahrain. The Indian civil aviation delegation was led by Mr. R.K. Singh, joint secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, and deputy secretary Government of India, Mr. M.S. Chopra along with the civil aviation director for Regulation and Information Mr. K.P. Maggon and other senior officials from Indian aviation.

The Kingdom of Bahrain was led by the undersecretary for civil aviation affairs, Capt. Abdulrahman Al Gaoud.

“This bilateral aviation agreement is a testament to the longstanding strong relations between Bahrain and India and this will further strengthen our symbiotic relations.” said Bahrain civil aviations affairs undersecretary Capt. Abdulrahman Al Gaoud, who led the Bahrain delegation to the high-level talks in Delhi.

Gulf Air’s president and chief executive Mr. Naf, who is on his first visit to India, hailed the agreement as a historic and momentous development for the airline, which is the sole national carrier of Bahrain.

“The success of this swift bilateral aviation agreement between the kingdom of Bahrain and India presents a golden opportunity for the two countries to further boost their economic and cultural development.”

“Being the first Middle East carrier to operate to India, Gulf Air considers this as a token of appreciation for its long term commitment to serve India. And as part of our efforts to be the airline of choice, we are looking at the rapidly growing India market as one of our stepping stones to success,” says Mr. Naf.

He added that Gulf Air has aggressively embarked on its expansion plans with the recent announcement of the Boeing 787 order valued at nearly US$ 6 billion in list prices.

Commenting on Gulf Air’s expansion in the country, Mr. Rajeev Nambiar, general manager of Gulf Air, India, said he was delighted with the outcome of the high-level talks.

“Gulf Air has been witnessed tremendous growth in India and we look forward to strengthening our presence in the country which has one of the worlds’ fastest growing economies. Indian market has always been a key focus area for Gulf Air and added capacity shall compliment our services to Indian travelers.” added Mr. Nambiar.

The increased accident rates are the most visible consequence of sub-Saharan Africa's struggling aviation safety system. Due to lack of political will at the highest levels of government for taking proactive steps on behalf of aviation safety has contributed to the underlying cause of distressing accident rate in this part of the world. However in most cases it may not be that simple.

Often the key political officials are not the authorities responsible for safety in aviation. Empowerment of the civil aviation department by the other government branches plays a critical role in enabling much-needed legislative changes. Institutional grievances, lack of communication, difficulty in understanding the international regulatory regime and the economic consequences of not meeting its standards, and outdated regulatory frameworks must be overcome before determination at the top of the political establishment can be effective.

Through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) audits of states' government civil aviation departments or independent civil aviation authorities (CAAs) some consequences of the current situation in Africa is discovered. Though formerly audit reports were to be confidential but became public March 1, 2008. Another consequence has been the blacklisting of some African airlines by the European Union.

Various African states are working towards improving their safety oversight systems on the basis of the findings of ICAO audits. However, many Africa civil aviation departments, those lacking the autonomy of CAAs, need the international aviation community to work with them in creating an enabling environment. That support will help African aviation professionals get the essential political backing from their government and legislative bodies. Such a campaign to provide the preconditions for political will must focus on a number of issues.

Creating Political Momentum.

Quite a few African countries have an established safety oversight system based on an outdated legal framework. The laws and regulations sometimes date back to the 1950s or 1960s.They were developed for a completely different era of the aviation industry. Such legal instruments may, for example, be geared to looking at purely technical solutions to safety issues. At best, they may take account of human factors. But hardly any are sufficiently current to tackle the issue of organizational weaknesses, as today's safety management systems do.

When the civil aviation departments try to realize fundamental changes toward the modern legal codes needed for adequate safety oversight then they may face political reluctance. Likewise they may fface similar political reluctance when trying to restructure the system in the direction of independent CAAs.The civil aviation department may have to persuade its parent Ministry, the cabinet and parliament that regulatory independence or regionalization is a critical step to move effective supervision and aviation safety improvements.

Quite a number of East and Southern African states have members of parliament who represent a district constituency. In such electoral systems, not only in Africa but throughout the world, some members of parliament are influenced by whether they can see political gain in supporting a particular legislative or administrative change to aviation safety oversight legislation.Moreover, members of parliament belonging to the political opposition may sometimes be reluctant to support changes favored by the ruling party.

With the transfer of a minister or secretary of transport will often mean new aviation policies and new managers of the civil aviation department. With this changes, in turn, may result in having to start over again in familiarizing the new officials with aviation safety issues and the need to push for changes in laws and regulations or for regulatory independence from politics.

Members of parliament, however, usually remain in office for their full term. They are a more constant force in government. It would certainly help aviation departments to have explanatory documentation written for a non-aviation audience to sensitize new members of parliament and ministers about the roles and international responsibilities of the aviation regulators. Such documentation should also explain the relevance of aviation safety to possible blacklisting and subsequent consequences for tourism and trade. That may also help win the support of key political players.

Civil Service Realities.

Another ingredient for political will is recognition of civil service realities. After all, resistance to restructuring of aviation departments may come from many professional corners. While there are opportunities for aviation inspectors to earn considerably more by moving to a commercial aviation job as a typical middle management civil servant in many African states may earn no more than us$500 per month. Also the government can not justify why a particular class of civil servants or experts, namely those in aviation, should earn significantly more than others.

More and more, the international aviation community considers the regionalization of safety oversight to be the best way to solve deficiencies in safety supervision.However, regional cooperation brings up issues of national independence and pride in Africa, just as it does elsewhere in the world, so the road to regionalization is not easy. An added complication in the case of African countries with a district electoral system is that decisions about these solutions may be put to members of parliament who may have no direct political interest in approving them.

While regional cooperation is a very constructive path, it should not lead to delaying the building of national capabilities. This is particularly true since lengthy development times are usually involved with such regional solutions. Capability build-up at a national level can very well be gradually integrated into the regional entity in due time.

The civil aviation department should consider salary top-ups –a supplemental income for key safety oversight experts and this will serve as a temporary solution. Salary top-ups are contentious issue but may provide a bridge to more structural solutions such as regional oversight organizations. In fact, even the ICAO cooperative Development of Operational Safety and continuing Airworthiness Program (COSCAP) projects rely indirectly on salary top-ups.

Salary top-ups help keep professionals with international qualifications available for critical civil service positions and other economic sectors are the health sector. In some cases, top-ups are supported by international community. Examples from other sectors seem to indicate that the costs involved in salary top-ups could be borne fairly easily by the international community.

Sharing Experience of Regulatory Independence.

A campaign for political understanding can also draw on experiences with regulatory independence in other countries wave of political and financial independence for government departments throughout Africa in the early 1990s has brought mixed experiences. The civil aviation through the collection of navigation and landing fees it has been empowered to use the finances for its operations. Through political independence the organization can operate outside the political mainstream. It then no longer has to devote previous resources to routinely addressing purely political issues.

For those countries that the aviation industry may be too small to generate sufficient revenues for a financially independent CAA, then in these cases, regionalization of safety oversight may be a solution. The African region can be helped by assistance in the form of tools to build an economic case for an independent civil aviation authority. Parliaments in Africa may want to know what are the credible sources of income for an authority-only with sufficient income can an authority survive on its own.The amount of revenue that is generated by a particular level of industry activity is quite often difficult to quantify, however.

Though a number of documents describe the tasks of a civil aviation authority, but they provide no logical explanation of the raison d'être for a civil aviation authority and its critical function in aviation safety based on state responsibilities. The international aviation safety community should consider organizing a program that enables countries in the region to learn from countries that already have established a CAA.

Raising Public Awareness.

Improving media reporting on the international safety oversight responsibilities that have to be met by aviation authorities will also have to be an ingredient of the ‘political understanding' campaign. Also ensuring numerous articles on safety are written in which responsibilities and powers of ICAO are misinterpreted. The media often do not understand the international expertise that is required to provide adequate safety oversight. Such experts can easily seek greener pastures in a growing industry in Africa or in other regions of the world, such as the Middle East.

Some news stories may be based on little or no research, encouraging unjustified public resistance to establishing financially and politically independent authorities and higher salary structures based on international standards.

Some countries pay specific attention to the deficiencies in air navigation services, as well as the inconsistency between deficiencies and the charges for these services. The most notorious subject is radar coverage. Since it is one of the most visible pieces of infrasture, the media eagerly pick up the issue, followed by calls for better navigation facilities and VHF radio communication coverage in controlled areas.However, there are other areas of aviation safety such as safety oversight that also deserve attention.

Tanzania is among the countries that have taken the important step of organizing aviation familiarization workshops for the media .This will help gain public appreciation of the international regulatory requirements through informed reporting. Better public appreciation may help create parliamentary priority for adequate safety oversight.

Data and Analysis.

With the use of data will assist in improving political understanding and justification for allocation of scarce resources. Very little information is available on the extend to which African aviation departments and authorities harvest comprehensive safety data other than accident statistics.

Safety data management and analysis have helped identify safety trends around the globe. They can be highly efficient in predicting where action is best taken to prevent incidents and accidents.However, data-driven safety management has not yet influenced aircraft operations in Africa on a large scale. Working toward a common collection of safety data will allow the detection of meaningful safety trends and eventually prevent incidents and accidents.However, data-driven safety management has not yet influenced aircraft operations in Africa on a large scale.

Working toward a common collection of safety data will allow the detection of meaningful safety trends and eventually prevent incidents from developing into accidents. In most African countries, the practice will require a change in legislation to give aviation safety professionals sufficient confidence in the proper use of the data they provide. The legislators have to be educated about nonpunitive data collection to be able to strike a delicate balance between protection of aviation professionals in the interest of safety and criminalization of accident investigations if there is a case to answer.

However, such data can also assist in building a rationale for devoting adequate resources to a CAA.Figures and graphs make it is easier to explain safety needs to key political players who have little aviation background. They may make clear to people outside the industry the added value of a competent CAA.In that manner, such data may help build a case for a restricted civil aviation authority or a transition to a regional safety oversight organization.

Role of ICAO.

A related challenge for the international aviation community is to produce publications that make all this more or less self-evident. Plain-language leaflets will have to describe why a regional oversight organization or an independent civil aviation authority can better take care of safety oversight then a politicized government department.

ICAO itself is being restructured into an organization that will focus on implementation of its standards. The African region can benefit from such standards-implementation assistance.

The ICAO Africa Comprehensive Implementation Plan (ACIP) offers good prospects for a coordinated approach. Important work is being done in cooperation with the industry Safety Strategy Group on implementing the Global Aviation Safety Roadmap. The implementation of ACIP will provide a thorough test of whether ICAO can effectively executive its new implementation role.

Following last year's ruling in favour of Travel Republic at Westminster Magistrates Court, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) recently launched another criminal prosecution against the online travel agent. In 2009, it was held that Travel Republic had not breached the Civil Aviation (Air Travel Organisers' Licensing) Regulations 1995, which pertain to package holidays among other aspects of the travel industry. Subsequently, the CAA brought further legal action against Travel Republic but this time chose to argue the issue from a more pointed angle by asking: was Travel Republic in breach of its legal duty to hold an ATOL (Air Travel Organisers' Licence)?

The ATOL was drawn up with the intention of providing greater protection to consumers who opt for package holidays. In the event of a travel operator permanently ceasing its business operations for one reason or another, the ATOL enables the CAA to ensure that affected customers do not lose their money and that, if they happen to be abroad at the time the travel operator goes out of business, any stranded customers are allowed to finish their holidays in the knowledge that return flights have been organised for them.

Travel operators that hold an ATOL are required to enter into a financial guarantee scheme that is managed by the Air Travel Trust (ATT), which supplies the monetary funds to customers should a travel operator go out of business. Clearly, the question as to whether or not an online travel agent holds an ATOL is critical in determining its liability where problems arise. As such, the CAA was disappointed to hear the judgement reached by Nicholas Evans DJ in the latest case involving CAA and Travel Republic.

Crucially, he ruled that Travel Republic did not act as a tour operator and did not, therefore, require an ATOL. The decision meant that Travel Republic had not committed a criminal offence, as the company merely acted in the role of travel agent and did not assemble package holidays. Although the decision may surprise some customers who purchase package holidays through online travel agents, the reality is such that contract formation is nowhere near as simple as the purchase itself; in fact, it is often the case that several separate contracts are involved: one for the flight; one for the accommodation; and others for various components of the holiday.

The decision reached in CAA v Travel Republic will have a profound impact on holidaymakers, who are advised to keep accurate records of every step involved in the booking process; indeed, of particular interest in the present case were the call transcripts and recorded telephone conversations relating to the booking in question. When using the services of online travel agents, it is essential that customers read the small print carefully and retain electronic and printed copies of all agreements signed. The question as to whether a holidaymaker has booked a 'package holiday' or some other form is not always easily resolved, yet the distinction is crucial in determining whether a claim can be brought in the English courts or abroad. The travel law team at Blake Lapthorn will quickly identify what protection is available in a given case and what steps can be taken to resolve any dispute.