Professional Documents
Culture Documents
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelE... 10-02-2014
Page 2 of 6
said.
Riple Efects
But the domino effect that Amber Dubey, head of aerospace and defence at consultancy KPMG s Indian unit, predicted, referring to
potential actions by other aviation regulators, which would then hurt carriers like IndiGo and Spice-Jet that fly to Southeast Asia and
Middle Eastern countries, has commenced. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore has said it will inspect Indian aircraft more.
The European Commission has said the FAA move is of significant interest to the European Union.
Understandably, every Indian aviation stakeholder is worried. Given the wide ramifications of its action, what forced the FAA hand?
At a press meet about three hours after news of the downgrade broke, aviation minister Ajit Singh said he was disappointed and
surprised by the FAA action. There have been a lot of remedial measures taken by us after the December audit but they [FAA]
didnt take it into account, he said.
In a separate conversation with ET Magazine, Singh reiterated his stand. Only two of the 31 aviation issues raised by the FAA
the DGCAs failure to hire enough flight inspectors and inadequacies in training airworthiness officers to conduct safety checks on
aircraft models used by non-scheduled operators (private jets, helicopters, charter planes and the like) still remain unresolved,
he said. For those two issues, we have been downgraded.
It would be easy to dismiss Singhs comments as a politicians attempt to stonewall criticism, but the FAAs own statement
makes for curious reading. The Indian government has made significant progress towards addressing issues identified during the
September audit and it took further steps to resolve outstanding issues when the Indian Cabinet approved the hiring of 75
additional full-time inspectors on January 20, according to the statement. The United States government commends the Indian
government for taking these important actions, and looks forward to continued progress by Indian authorities to comply with
internationally mandated aviation safety oversight standards.
So did the FAA punish India for lack of action on just two issues, one of which it seemingly had made progress? Ian Gregor, a
spokesman for the FAA, said the press statement is his organizations only comment on the issue.
Many Indian officials that ET Magazine approached are upset that the FAA has ignored the governments significant progress in
resolving issues it raised. Privately, they wonder if there is more to the FAA action than meets the eye. Their reasoning is this: the
downgrade has come against the backdrop of tensions in the US-India relationship, particularly the kerfuffle over the arrest of
Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York. The Air India official called the FAA action nothing but gundagiri.
US officials seem to have taken pains to dispel such interpretations. In a letter to Prabhat Kumar, director general at DGCA, John
S Duncan, director, Flight Standards Service, FAA wrote, We wish to provide you with the highest assurances that this
assessment was based strictly on factual information available to us during the September and December visits and takes into
account the ongoing progress you have communicated to us since.
An American aviation analyst who is familiar with the functioning of FAA said this is not a case of the US shooting itself in the
foot. The FAA in particular and the US in general has a rigorous, apolitical bureaucracy, he said.
A recent note by aviation consulting and research practice body Capa also suggested that FAAs actions are independent of the
American foreign policy interests because the regulator has in the past downgraded allies like the Philippines (in January 2008),
Israel (December 2008) and Mexico ( July 2010).
In 2001, the FAAs decision to downgrade South Koreas air safety rating had touched off protests in Seoul. The FAA stuck to its
guns then, forcing South Korean officials to eventually drop the angry tone and cooperate.
The reactions of Indian officials, at least publicly, have been tame in contrast despite all their efforts of averting the downgrade
coming to naught. They were actually confident even after the December audit. A part of this optimism stemmed from the hundreds
of planes from US manufacturer Boeing that carriers like Air India have ordered for expansion would the US dare harm its
commercial interests? .
It is safe to say Indian officials never comprehended fully the seriousness of the matter. They had averted a downgrade in the
past, after all. The feedback we got was a downgrade was not coming, said an aviation ministry official.
The differences in bureaucratic culture too could have played a part, the official said. We do safety checks, but sometimes those
records are not maintained.
In August, an official of one of the aircraft makers had warned this reporter of a downgrade by FAA. If Israel for all its clout in the
US could not avert a downgrade, how will India?
But Indian officials began to take the threat of a downgrade seriously only in the first week of January. Representatives of FAA
and DGCA were engaged in long deliberations every day and it soon became clear that a downgrade was at hand.
Panic set in sometime during the second week of January. The government tried to avert the downgrade by approving the hiring
of 75 flight inspectors. The FAA was unmoved. On January 31, its officials conveyed to DGCAs Kumar of their decision to cut the
air safety rating in New Delhi.
Same Old Story
Of course, except government officials, everyone has been predicting the downgrade for a while, and why wouldnt they?
The shortage of manpower at the DGCA has been a recurring issue since the first audit by the UNs International Civil Aviation
Organization in 1997, according to Capa. The Capa note says the DGCA s shortcomings were also highlighted in 2009 when the
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelE... 10-02-2014
Page 3 of 6
FAA, concerned by what it considered to be gross under-staffing, particularly in the Directorate of Airworthiness, threatened to
downgrade India. A brief flurry of activity followed and after the Indian Cabinet committed to recruiting more than 500 employees,
India passed the FAA audit and retained its Category 1 status.
But complacency soon returned. The DGCAs deficit of officers became more gaping by a 50% rise in air traffic since 2009 (see
Acute Shortage).
KPMG s Dubey said Indias aviation industry witnessed phenomenal growth in the past decade but somewhere along the way,
safety regulations received lesser attention. The FAA downgrade is unfortunate but not unexpected, he said. Many in the industry
had seen it coming.
Yet, incredulously, the DGCA s hiring system continued to goose-step along fundamentally unchanged. The DGCA recruitment is
weighed down by red tape, requiring approvals from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the law ministry and the
Department of Personnel and Training. It should not then be a surprise that 427 of the total 94 posts at the DGCA have been lying
vacant since 2009.
A former DGCA official said he spent much of his time at the UPSC trying to convince his counterparts to expedite hiring. The
aviation ministry official said even now if a UPSC official hears that a pilot earns nearly 10 lakh a month, chances are that he would
faint.
The severe shortage of manpower has resulted in dereliction of duties at the DGCA (see How Staff Crunch ). The regulators
Regulatory Audit Policy states that
keeping in view all the available resources with the DGCA, it will audit operators that have 10
or more aircraft every year, but for those with a smaller fleet, the audits will be carried out every alternate year.
On an average, six FAA officials have been assigned for every airliner in the US, but in India, there is one DGCA official for every
three aircraft, according to Martin Consulting.
Sorry State
The DGCAs Safety Oversight Programme in 2013 states it had no checks on the institutes of airlines and airports. The regulator
also did not assign officers to check the cabin crew on Air Indias Boeing planes, Jet and IndiGo in December. And its Safety
Assessment of Foreign Aircraft schedule does not list planes operated by European carriers Virgin Atlantic, KLM and Swiss.
A DGCA officer said on paper, the regulators audits are comprehensive. They require visits to examine stores, aircraft,
maintenance facilities, dispatch department, records, ramps and so on. But statistical analyses of these audits to suggest
remedies or to check if the remedies have been implemented are rarely done, according to the officer.
On many occasions, there is duplication of effort. An operator could face audits simultaneously by officials of the Flights
Standards Directorate, Airworthiness Directorate and Licensing Directorate.
Not surprisingly, a culture of lethargy has creeped into the organization. Many officers of the DGCA, which has four regional
offices and 16 sub-regional offices, have been working from congested and ill-maintained buildings, according to the findings of a
working group constituted by the Planning Commission. Many are frustrated. Not only is the pay bad, promotions are also stuck,
said the DGCA officer.
Examples of corruption and fraud too have become rampant in recent years. (A DGCA joint director, the highest ranking official
after the director general, receives a gross pay of a little over 1 lakh a month).
Candidates who topped exams were found to be the children of senior DGCA officers. Even now and then, senior officials have
stumbled on cases of fake pilots, those who havent even appeared for exams.
Kapil Kaul, CEO, South Asia of Capa, said Indian aviation rules are not firm and fair. The sector has been operated since the
1990s in an ad-hoc manner. The regulatory framework remains very weak, institutional capability and competence is under
developed, and there is no long-term planning and capacity building initiated in a structured manner.
New aviation secretary Ashok Lavasa said the regulatory process in aviation is still evolving. It requires a level of maturity that
other sectors can boast of.
Wolfgang Will, the new director of European airline Lufthansa, said the operational environment in India due to high taxes, airport
fees and charges, limited infrastructure etc means the country is not taking the greatest benefit from its huge market potential.
Timely Action
For these reasons, many experts believe that the FAA action is godsend (see Thank you FAA for the Rap). The one silver lining in
the downgrade is that it may act as a serious wake-up call and that India may take the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive
White Paper review of the state of aviation safety in the country, said the Capa note.
Craig Jenks, president of Airline/Aircraft Projects Inc, a New York-based aviation consultancy, said Indian aviation at least now
strives to catch up globally. But catching up is not enough in an industry that itself changes so rapidly. Indian aviation needs an
ethos of excelling, not catching up, he said.
The first step in this direction is the creation of a new regulator called Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). A bill to create the CAA,
which can recruit and fix remuneration by itself without turning to the government for money, is likely to be passed in the ongoing
session of Parliament.
Of the 23 proposals put forth by a panel of MPs that vetted the bill, 16 have been accepted and three
partially, said the aviation
ministry official. The bill will be passed at any cost even by voice vote because of the urgency necessitated by the FAA action, he
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelE... 10-02-2014
Page 4 of 6
said.
Though the CAA will have financial autonomy, there are doubts about its operational freedom. The new regulator will continue to
be run by a bureaucrat and the chairperson of a board of 7-9 members will be part-time.
A former aviation ministry official familiar with the CAA bill said no self-respecting person will join the CAA board. It will again be
filled by government officials. There might be 2-3 token members from outside.
The existing regulator DGCA, meanwhile, is focussed on the recruitment of flight operations inspectors. The government seems
to have finally accepted that good pay is crucial to hiring experienced personnel.
A DGCA circular issued on Friday said a Senior Flight Operations Inspector will be paid up to 6,77,500 a month. Since
September, the DGCA has also been hiring a number of apprentices.
These moves are purportedly to meet a deadline of March, which Singh has set for India to meet FAA standards and regain its
ranking. Once hiring is done, we expect the FAA to restore the ranking, he said.
But it could be a long haul. In recent years, only Mexico lost and regained its Category 1 status within four months. Israel took
four years to regain its rating. The Philippines and Indonesia are still in Category 2 even after five years and six years, respectively.
The Indian government might not be as patient. The aviation ministry official warned that if the FAA does not restore Indias
ranking after the hiring and training of officers are completed, the government will launch retaliatory action. We will conduct extra
inspections and delay planes of US airlines.
It remains to be seen if these moves will bear fruit. The American analyst said the FAA does not negotiate. They [FAA] set
standards and then measure if they are being met. So Category 1 can be regained soon if the right moves are made. If India seeks
to negotiate special case status, or that India has different ways of doing things, or tries to swap this issue with some other, the
downgrade will last indefinitely.
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelE... 10-02-2014
Page 5 of 6
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:LowLevelE... 10-02-2014