A clash between Peru and the USA over the Federal Aviation Administration's safety assessment programme, coupled with controversy over Peru's recent election, has led to a souring of relations that could jeopardise the USA-Peru open skies deal.
Much of Latin America is watching this brewing debate with keen interest. It resembles many complaints from around the region about opening their skies to US carriers only to see US skies closed to them due to a category II ban from the FAA.
All three Peruvian airlines awarded US routes in the bilateral - AeroContinente, LanPeru, and cargo carrier Cielos de Peru - have been operating to the USA since last year under exemption authority from Washington DC, but only on condition that they use aircraft wet-leased from a US airline or the airline of another category I country. Because Peru itself has been listed as Category I since 1997, its government objects to this restriction.
Patricia Siles, general manager of Cielos de Peru, calls the wet-lease requirement "onerous". LanPeru has asked the US Department of Transportation (DoT) to drop it, arguing that Peru meets all International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) safety standards, as well as those of the FAA. Yet, LanPeru's application has languished for months.
AeroContinente took the bolder step of demanding that Washington justify its wet-lease requirement. When no one responded, in early June, it suspended all flights to the USA. In a sharply worded statement, AeroContinente complains: "A Peruvian carrier limited to a wet-lease operation cannot compete economically in the same market with an American carrier operating its own aircraft."
AeroContinente accuses the USA of breaching the Peru-US bilateral by discrimination and says it will not reinstate service "until we are permitted to operate our own aircraft to the USA, under the same conditions as the airlines of the USA operate their aircraft to our country".
Lima has sought consultations, but a Washington source close to the dispute predicts they will be "brief and abrupt". The DoT has never explained why it requires Peru's airlines to wet-lease. It does not appear to base this on any deficiency by the individual airlines, but on the fact that they are from Peru.
The explanation, according to insiders, is that the FAA left a number of items pending after its last safety review of Peru's civil aviation authority, the Director General of Air Transport (DGTA). Before FAA officials could return for a follow-up, a new director took over at the DGTA and a number of experienced technical staff left. The FAA would not downgrade Peru without another review, but insisted in the interim that Peruvian carriers wet-lease all flights to the USA.
The FAA planned to return to Lima earlier this year, but decided it should wait until after Peru's presidential election so it could seek permission from the new government. That was before the election blew up, drawing criticism from many international sources, including President Clinton. Since then, US State Department officials have called the election invalid and threatened sanctions. Exactly where that leaves an FAA inspection is unclear, but as one US official notes, the political turmoil does not offer much assurance about a country's technical fitness. Several FAA officials have publicly acknowledged that they have safety concerns about Peru.
The view from Lima, even before the election brouhaha, was that Washington's actions are unjustified. An unnamed official told Lima newspapers that if the USA persists in restricting access for Peru's airlines, Lima may deny requests from US airlines for more flights to or beyond Peru.
Julian Palacín, president of Peru's Institute of Air Law, blames the DGTA for acquiescing in FAA oversight from the outset. Palacin told Lima's Expreso: "The USA has always taken unilateral measures with extraterritorial effect and, lamentably, the countries of the region have accepted it tamely. The famous subject of category I is really a legal creation of the USA.
"Who is the USA to put us in category I or II? We are members of ICAO and, as such, we complied with the international standards. Nevertheless, the DGTA authorities accepted the subject of category I or II, were put under the North American authority and applied the North American aeronautical regulations, leading to the collapse of Peruvian aviation. In general terms, everything became what the USA wanted as of 1996."
Various sources report rumblings in Lima to renounce the 1998 Peru-USA bilateral. Peru once before repudiated its bilateral with the USA. So far, the closest anyone has come publicly is an unnamed official's warning in local papers that if Washington keeps its wet-lease rule, Lima "does not discard the possibility" that it could "return to zero".
Source: Airline Business
