Flights of fancy

Just as our local officials are scrambling for an international airport in the province, there came a hard slap on the country’s civil aviation industry, hitting both the national governing agency and the private sector.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has downgraded the Philippine’s aviation safety oversight rating to Category 2 from the previous and long-standing Category 1 status.

The demotion indicates that the Air Transport Authority (ATO), the government agency in charge of civil aviation matters, has fallen short of the safety standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in terms of monitoring the operations of Philippine carriers.

The FAA evaluation cites many weaknesses: there are not enough laws and regulation here for the certification and monitoring of local airlines to meet even just the minimum ICAO standards; the ATO lacks technical expertise, resources and a management system to license air operations.

Following the downgrade, the US Embassy consequently issued an advisory telling its citizens not to fly with Philippine carriers. This particularly hurts Philippine Airlines (PAL), the country’s major flag carrier, being the only one serving the Philippine-US route through several US states.

Until the Philippines recovers its Category 1 rating, PAL will not be allowed to operate new routes into the US or change current aircraft type set for existing routes.

ATO employees were not surprised by the FAA assessment. They must have known for a long time that it was coming given the “incompetence” of some of their top officials, as they have publicly declared in a statement addressed to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Now one wonders if all the maneuverings to build an airport in the province will amount to anything, particularly now that its economic feasibility is greatly impaired if not completely imperiled by this one-two punch brought about by our own ATO officials.

 Hopefully, all these get sorted out soon at the different levels, including the legislative requirements, administrative issues, and the overall civil aviation system. Otherwise, new airports in the country, including the one envisioned in Pangasinan, might prove to be just a fancy and foolish undertaking.

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