Is it time for a civil aviation ombudsman to balance what some in the airline industry refer to as the South African Civil Aviation Authority’s (SA CAA) “unreasonable and heavy-handed” regulation?
Editor of SA Flyer magazine, Guy Leitch, believes it is, referring to the SA CAA as a “bloated bureaucratic monster” with declining service standards. He said in his December 2017 position report that there was increasing pressure to mount a class action law suit against the authority for bad service.
An aviation industry insider who spoke to FTW on condition of anonymity was less vocal against the CAA but did say the authority tended to be “over-zealous” in ensuring airworthiness.
“This can cost an airline dearly as it can lose credibility and lose business if it doesn’t meet delivery requirements – not to mention other operational costs and potential losses,” he pointed out.
His response was on the back of a query around the temporary self-imposed withdrawal of service for certain South African Airways (SAA) cargo aircraft for non-compliance with the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) upgrades in mid-February. The decision to withdraw the planes was supported by the SA CAA as it had denied the national carrier’s application for an exemption extension on the installation of the upgraded TCAS system.
SA CAA spokesperson Kabelo Ledwaba told FTW that since then SAA had been granted an extension by the director of civil aviation at the SA CAA. “Moreover, the operator has also managed to upgrade some of their aircraft’s TCAS equipment from Version 7.0 to version 7.1,” he said. According to Ledwaba, all TCAS systems provide various forms of collision threat alerting and a traffic display. “The upgraded version improves the alerting capability, providing not only traffic advisories but recommended escape manoeuvres to increase separation between aircraft that may be in danger of colliding,” he explained.
The industry insider told FTW that there were two global levels of compliance when it came to airworthiness – a service bulletin (SB) that was either optional or mandatory and an airworthiness directive (AD) which was mandatory. “The SA CAA tends to turn every SB into an AD,” he commented. But Ledwaba disagreed, telling FTW that SA CAA mandated compliance with all SBs that were declared as mandatory by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). “This was not an optional directive. In this case there is a mandatory requirement based on the type of operation involved,” he explained.
Ledwaba said it was “disheartening” for some to suggest that globally accepted rules should be ignored or lowered in order to accommodate the financial gains of a few.
“By ensuring maximum compliance with civil aviation regulations, SA CAA has assisted South Africa to retain the impeccable zero percent fatal accident record in relation to airlinesand other scheduled commercial operations,” he said, adding that upholding “unquestionable levels of aviation safety and security” was about preserving lives.
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It's disheartening for some to suggest that globally accepted rules should be ignored or lowered in order to accommodate the financial gains of a few. – Kabelo Ledwaba
