Airline News
Thailand disappoints JCAB
May 11th 2015
Thailand’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) has come under renewed scrutiny for failing to update foreign authorities about the “significant safety concerns” raised in the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) last audit in January. Read More »
Under a memorandum of understanding signed last month, the DCA agreed to submit regular updates to the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB), outlining its progress in rectifying the long list of security breaches raised by the UN aviation watchdog. In return, the JCAB lifted a charter-flight ban on six Thai-registered carriers, including Thai Airways International (THAI), NokScoot, Asian Air, Jet Asia Airways, Asia Atlantic Airlines and Thai AirAsia X. The agreement allows the airlines to operate charter flights to Japan from April 11 to May 31.
Thailand’s Transport Minister, Prajin Juntong, said the Japanese authorities had recently contacted DCA director general, Somchai Phiphuttawat, to complain they had not observed any improvements in coordination with the Thai authorities, nor received sufficient progress reports. In response, Prajin said a committee was being formed to improve communications between the two countries and added that DCA chief Somchai had recently travelled to Germany and South Korea to address the ICAO audit findings. This Week in Asia-Pacific Aviation understands that Somchai was also lobbying the German and Korean authorities against following the JCAB’s lead in imposing bans on Thai carriers.
The Thai DCA has finalized a detailed corrective action plan, which it plans to present to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on May 10 before forwarding it to ICAO and the JCAB. ICAO said it expected to release the results of its audit of said action plan by June 18. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will come to Thailand in mid-July to launch its own inspections. If Thailand hasn’t fixed its issues by then, a costly and embarrassing downgrade to Category 2 seems likely. That said, last week consulting firm AVCON Worldwide said it had warned former THAI president, Khun Kasemsuvan, as early as September 20, 2013, in regards to evidence collected enough to downgrade the carrier’s safety rating to Category 2, but despite several attempts failed to receive an answer from the national carrier. THAI also declined to comment on an enquiry from This Week in Asia-Pacific Aviation.
