EC meet puts Nepal on agenda
KATHMANDU, NOV 29 -
Almost a year after the European Commission (EC) blacklisted Nepali carriers for their poor safety record, its aviation safety committee meeting held from November 25-27 in Brussels, Belgium has put Nepal on the agenda.
The meeting assesses the situation and decides the best course of action under the various options in the EU air safety list regulation. The meeting’s findings are expected to be released by the first week of December. On December 5, 2013, the EC issued a notice barring Nepali airlines from Europe and advising travellers not to fly on them because of their bad safety performance.
Officials of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan) said that they were still unaware of the EC’s decision. “However, if Nepal has been put on the agenda, the meeting will produce a ruling, either positive or negative. We have made significant progress on the aviation safety front to convince the EC, but we don’t know what the meeting’s outcome will be.”
The previous meeting held from March 25-27 in Brussels did not consider it necessary to discuss the ban on Nepal, so it had to wait until the next meeting in November. Before the November meeting, the EC had also conducted a video conference with Caan and Nepali airlines.
Caan has sent a report prepared by an expert of the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) to the EC. It had recently hired the specialist to conduct an on-site inspection of the major issues pointed out by the Icao Coordinated Validation Miss-ion (ICVM) in July last year.
In August, producing Nepal’s report based on July’s inspection, Icao showed Significant Safety Concern (SSC) with respect to the ability of Nepal to properly oversee the airlines under its jurisdiction.
Icao has grave concerns about Nepal’s air safety, and has placed it among the 12 worst performing nations. Nepal has been red-flagged on “operations” among the eight critical elements of safety oversight. “The expert has shown good progress in his report, but he has advised Caan not to invite the ICVM immediately as all the steps taken by the regulator needs to be implemented properly first,” said officials. “The mission looks at the implementation part.” Based on the expert’s report, Caan had planned inviting the ICVM in March next year to inspect the corrective measures adopted by Nepal to ensure safety.
The ICVM is invited when a regulator assumes it can convince the mission that corrective measures have been taken on the deficiencies pointed out by its earlier mission. Results of an Icao audit in May 2009 had found Nepal not effectively complying with a majority of the international safety standards.
Caan had invited the ICVM to Nepal last July to validate the corrective measures.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
