Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) today formally informed the European Union (EU) that it has addressed most of the safety concerns raised it had raised.
The EU had asked Nepal to submit the progress report on aviation safety and operations to EU Air Safety Committee by September 15.
The CAAN has made significant progress on audit findings of International Civil Aviation Organisation and is forwarding the supporting documents soon, the aviation sector regulator said, in its letter to the EU.
The aviation sector regulator has – in the letter – highlighted status of implementation of EU recommendations, onsite observation, pilot licensing, air operator certificate (AOC) validation, CAAN’s capacity, current list of AOC holders, operation specification of AOC holders and status of accident investigation recommendations from 2009.
CAAN has already informed ICAO that it applied five-phase modality to issue new AOC, though it has still to do more in terms of air crash investigation.
Under the five-phase modality, CAAN has already adopted pre-application, formal application, documentation , document evaluation and AOC issuance.
CAAN also informed that it is preparing to reply to the European Union, which is scheduled to summon CAAN officials on September 24 over numerous safety concerns.
An EU team from Brussels will hold a video conference with senior CAAN officials at EU country office in Kathmandu to verify their claims on corrective measures taken in aviation sector.
Only after verifying CAAN’s claims, the EU team will decide whether to put Nepal’s agenda in a meeting of European Aviation Safety Agency in November to review its air safety list.
Likewise, a three-member CAAN team is leaving for Bangkok to attend ICAO’s five-day meeting of Asia Pacific Regional Aviation Safety Team on Sunday.