The US Federal Aviation Administration faces scrutiny in Panama and Bolivia over its contentious safety assessment programme, always a bone of contention in Latin America.
The FAA's decision to downgrade Panama to Category 2 came as a surprise there. Pedro Heilbron, chief executive of Panama's Copa, says local aviation officials realised they had problems, but "thought they had longer to fix them".
Under Category 2, no Panamanian airline can add or change services to the USA. This particularly affects Copa as it is awaiting delivery this year of four new Boeing 737-700s, at least two of which were planned for USA flights.
Ironically, the FAA's regrading of Panama came only three days after the US Department of Transportation(DoT) granted antitrust immunity to a Copa-Continental Airlines codeshare - Panama's new status raises an issue about that codeshare. DoT guidelines say that if a country moves from Category 1 to 2,Ê"the impact on existing codeshare arrangements will be considered on a case-by-case basis". Yet, the DoT treats this as automatic. After the FAA downgraded Panama, DoT asked Continental to pull its code off Copa flights and Continental complied. "This is unfair," complains Heilbron. "It has a big impact on us, and removing the code does not promote safety."
Bolivia is also looming as a test for the FAA. The FAA says its programme is designed to determine if local civil aviation agencies comply with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) safety standards; the FAA naturally claims it applies ICAO standards in making this assessment.
However, its critics disagree. Robert Papkin, a Washington lawyer who represents Latin aviation clients, says: "I have heard a number of present and former [FAA] inspectors comment on the different approaches of different FAA offices to international safety oversight assessment. A lack of uniformity does not make for sound administrative policy."
ICAO just completed a safety audit of Bolivia and given it a clean slate. Unless the FAA upgrades Bolivia from Category 2 to 1, critics will have new cause to complain that the FAA is really applying its own unwritten rules.
Source: Airline Business
