Comment
Solutions for safer skies
March 1st 2015
Air traffic providers are straining to cope with accelerating capacity and route development across the region. That’s not news. Many Asia-Pacific countries are operating in an environment equipped with mismatched technology of varying sophistication across flight information zones. That’s not news either. Read More »
But what is news, more extensively reported since the fatal crash of Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501 on December 28, is the progress being made in developing a more efficient system of Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM).
At present, countries with superior ATM systems offer their airline customers separation of up to 10-15 nautical miles. In countries not so well equipped, to ensure safe flying, it can be 30 nautical miles. In the Asia-Pacific, this lack of ATM standardization adds up to hundreds of flight delays everything week, wasted fuel and, consequently, extra costs for carriers.
However, the combined efforts of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and national regulators are assisting a number of Asia-Pacific nations to put in place an upgraded ATFM.
Initially, the upgrade will be applied in groups of three, four or five states, but eventually all participating countries will come together and offer ATFM across the region.
But this will take time and it is only part of the solution. In the Asia-Pacific, as elsewhere, countries vary enormously in their application of ICAO aviation safety rules. Examples include licencing of pilots, engineers and other service providers.
A single regional aviation safety organization, as proposed by AirAsia group chief, Tony Fernandes, and Indonesia and China’s civil aviation regulators, to align safety standards across the Asia-Pacific, appears a good idea.
But closer examination of the idea reveals what airlines already know: persuading all countries in the Asia-Pacific, with their diverse cultures and political systems, to agree to a common set of safe flying rules will be easier said than done.
Fernandes and his supporters of an Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) aviation regulatory organization argue if the association’s member countries, from sophisticated Singapore to evolving Myanmar, and from fast-growing Indonesia to emerging Laos, could successfully implement a standard set of ICAO based safety and technical rules, their success would encourage other countries in the region to follow suit.
As with ATFM, the concept could gradually be phased in until region-wide standardization is achieved.
