U.S. To Press For Expanded International Air Safety Effort
With thousands of Americans boarding airlines around the world each day, U.S. officials are launching a campaign to make sure all carriers get proper supervision.
The Federal Aviation Administration already rates air safety programs in the 104 nations that are U.S. trading partners. But that leaves many others that do not get checked.
So Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey will be pressing for expansion of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s international monitoring program next week at a conference in Montreal. ICAO has 185 member states.
She plans to call on ICAO to broaden and strengthen its year-old effort to assess air safety around the world, according to senior FAA officials.
“Basically, what we want to do is make it a more effective program,” said an FAA official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The ICAO coordinates international aviation and recommends safety standards for individual countries to apply to their airlines.
Its oversight program seeks to determine how well a country applies those standards. The meeting also will discuss whether the program should be expanded to include reviews of air traffic control, airport operations and data-sharing among countries.
The FAA’s assessment program, in operation since 1992, has reviewed 79 countries, finding that 52 meet ICAO standards, 13 were listed as conditional and 14 failed to meet standards.
The U.S. proposals urge the ICAO to speed up its assessments, reporting findings to the country involved within 90 days and calling on that country to submit a plan to fix problems within 120 days.
Now, only brief summaries of ICAO reports are released. The U.S. delegation will be pressing for full disclosure of the final report on a country so others can consider whether to limit international operations with a nation that fails to make the grade.
The United States also wants the ICAO to carry out assessments based on perceived need rather than waiting for a country to ask.