FAA decision to downgrade India disappointing: Ajit Singh

Commenting on the United States Federal Aviation Administration's decision to downgrade India's aviation safety ranking, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh on Friday described the decision as disappointing and surprising.

"It is very disappointing and also very surprising. If we look now, we are in compliance with 95 percent of the issues they had raised. Their report has not into taken account things that have happened since then. It is based only on what the situation was in December," Singh told media here today.

"FAA's report is based on their visit in December when seven issues were outstanding out of 31. Based on that they said, we have complied with 75 percent of the issues. Therefore, they have downgraded us to Category Two," he added.

Ajit Singh also said that India will continue to discuss technical things with the FAA and hoped that once the hiring programme is completed, it will review its decision.

Meanwhile Ajit Singh also announced that the cabinet has approved the hiring of 75 Chief Flight Operations Inspector (CFOI), Deputy CFOIs, Senior CFOIs and FOIs

"FAA was here for an audit in September 2013. They had raised 31 issues. They came again in December. At that time 24 of those issues were resolved by then and only seven were left. By January 22, we had resolved another five issues and only two were left. One was the number of technical trainers and other was that every plane has to have an approving flight. Lot of general aviation planes did not have that flight," he said

As for the approval flight, Singh said a schedule has been made.

"This you have to make with the manufacture. Both these things should be completed by March," he said

Commenting on the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) assessment of India on Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme, Singh said it is much above the global average.

Under this audit programme, ICAO had identified eight critical elements. They are legislation, organization, licensing, operation, air worthiness, accident investigation, air navigation and aerodromes.

"As per ICAO's 2013 safety report based on these norms audit result as of December 31, 2012 India figures among the states having effective implementation above the global average. The global average if 61 percent whereas India's effective implementation is79.1 percent," he said.

"Only area, where India is below global average is 'organization'. India has already created 75 post and after the recruitment it is expected that the effective implementation in this (organization) element will rise above the global average," he added.

Earlier today, the FAA had downgraded safety ranking of India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) from Category I to Category II.

The decision means that the Indian airlines cannot add more flights to the U.S. Other than this, it is mandatory for the aircrafts to undergo additional safety checks before flying to the U.S.