The US Federal Aviation Administration is doing its image no favours in Latin America, where the latest gaff in its safety oversight programme has opened it up to accusations of meddling in Colombia's internal affairs.
Following a recent inspection in Bogota, which local officials hoped might lead to upgrading the country's Category 2 status, FAA officials criticised the lack of civil oversight of domestic carrier Satena, operated by the air force.
This has opened the US agency up to charges of overstepping its jurisdiction and has raised concerns in Colombia that the FAA will delay returning the country to Category 1, which would allow its carriers to use their full US traffic rights. 'We do not agree with the procedures of the FAA,' says an official at Atac, Colombia's airline association. 'This has commercial consequences for Colombia's airlines.'
Another Colombian aviation source agrees: 'The FAA must have some limits to its long- arm jurisdiction. We cannot wait until all 200 or so air transport-related companies in Colombia are inspected and certified, because it could take months or years for us to go back to Category 1. There has to be some pragmatic cut off.' The Colombians are becoming increasingly frustrated by the FAA's freeze on their carriers' US operations, with US carriers reaping the benefits.
But Kathryn Creedy, at the FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment programme, claims the action has been misinterpreted and that the agency is acting in good faith. 'A lot of people don't understand our Iasa programme.' She cites the example of Argentina's pilots who brought their domestic safety concerns to the FAA. 'All we could do was pass those along to the local civil aviation authority, knowing full well that we had no jurisdiction over the issues they were bringing up.'
Creedy claims the FAA's concern about a foreign domestic issue would not affect its assessment of that country's safety compliance. 'If we observe something that we think needs to be brought to the attention of the foreign civil aviation authority, we will,' says Creedy. 'But we only have regulatory authority over that one narrow portion of their civil aviation relating to operations to the United States, and their ability to oversee those operations to international standards.'
But Colombian officials remain sceptical as to why the FAA thinks AeroCivil, its Colombian counterpart, needs a reminder that it lacks control over an Air Force-operated domestic airline, and why the FAA feels the need to include this in a list of concerns about oversight of Colombia's international operators.
One possible explanation is that the FAA thought it might help AeroCivil in its campaign to gain supervisory control over Satena. But Atac remains dubious. 'The FAA is trying to apply their law in our country,' says the official.
Source: Airline Business