David Learmount/LONDON
In a surprise move, the UK Civil Aviation Authority suspended operating permission for five days for UK airlines to lease aircraft from Air Atlanta Icelandic. The issue, says the CAA, was the manner in which Air Atlanta was using an out-of-service Boeing 747 to supply parts for the aircraft.
A 747 and three Lockheed L-1011 TriStars belonging to the operator, which specialises in wet-leasing aircraft to airlines which need short-term capacity, were flying for Caledonian Airways/Peach Air, Britannia Airways and Monarch Airlines at the time.
The suspension took effect on 23 October and was lifted on 28 October. Air Atlanta says that the CAA was concerned that the spare parts records at its Manston, UK, maintenance base were not up to standard, but on examination agreed that they complied with regulations. The CAA confirms this, but says that the main issue was the wholesale transfer of secondhand parts from an aircraft parked in the open.
The Authority agrees that short-term transfer of individual parts between unhangared aircraft for a specific task can be carried out within the regulations, but not on a large scale. Air Atlanta claims that this is a matter of interpretation of European Joint Aviation Regulation (JAR) 145. The CAA explains that JAR145 states that the maintenance organisation must have "the appropriate facilities for the work it undertakes", and it did not believe that this was the case.
The ban was lifted after it had been agreed with the Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration that the ICAA would "quarantine" the affected spare parts, says the CAA. Quarantining means that they may not be used until a quality assurance team has inspected them and certified that complete service history records exist for each one.
Meanwhile, British Airways has issued a vehement denial of allegations in UK national newspaper, The Guardian, that it had been reprimanded by the CAA for safety procedures at a third-party maintenance contractor which the airline was using. BA did, however, undergo a routine CAA safety audit earlier this year, and the Authority comments: "We have been making it clear to all airlines that they need to have in place comprehensive quality control systems, particularly where third-party arrangements are concerned."
Source: Flight International
