AS with many Malay-sians, I’m certainly miffed by the revelation that our country’s civil aviation safety standards have not been up to the mark as prescribed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
And that the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) of the United States has deemed it fit to place Malaysia under Category 2 of the ICAO safety list.
This downgrading means that we’ve joined the ranks of Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Curacao, Ghana and Thailand.
On the other side of the coin, Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, is in Category 1.
And so is rugby-loving Samoa, once war-torn Serbia and Croatia, or even nearer home, Vietnam; a country once split into north and south.
Where did we go wrong in failing to pass the ICAO’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) rating?
This needs a major evaluation.
Interestingly, Malaysia actually has two regulators for civil aviation — the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) and the Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) that was set up only in 2016.
That should have made us better prepared when the US inspectors came around to see what we’ve been doing but we still failed the audit!
CAAM is responsible for regulating technical, maintenance and safety matters while MAVCOM is an independent entity regulating economic and commercial matters in Malaysia.
What does a Category 2 IASA rating mean?
It means that CAAM is deficient in one or more areas, such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record-keeping, and/or inspection procedures.
Malaysia was assigned a Category 1 rating in 2003.
The FAA conducted an in-country reassessment of Malaysia under the IASA programme in April this year, and later met with the CAAM in July to discuss the results.
That process was an assessment of CAAM, and not any individual airline operating inside or outside of Malaysia.
With the Category 2 rating, it means that Malaysia’s carriers can continue existing service to the US.
But they’ll not be allowed to mount new services there.
Under the IASA programme, the FAA assesses the civil aviation authorities of all countries with air carriers that fly to the US, or have applied to do so, or are in code-sharing arrangements with US partner airlines.
The assessments determine whether foreign civil aviation authorities are meeting ICAO safety standards, not FAA regulations.
It’s been reported that the FAA posed 300 questions and 33 still needed to be addressed.
Twelve involved changing or amending laws governing CAAM, 10 on training and recruitment and the remainder on the delegation of authority and documentation.
Although it was earlier stated that the downgrade only pertained to CAAM’s safety standards as the reclassification does not refer to the safety standards of Malaysian carriers or airlines, the repercussions that followed had been rather damaging indeed.
Take the case of US carrier American Airlines which removed its “AA” code from flights operated by Malaysia Airlines despite being members of the Oneworld Alliance.
What does that amount to?
It meant that American Airlines decided that it no longer wanted to codeshare with Malaysia Airlines.
As such, American Airlines passengers who had booked their flights with Malaysia Airlines for subsequent connectivity are now advised to re-book with other Category 1 carriers.
The knock-on effects have begun.
In other words, Malaysia Airlines or other Malaysian carriers may lose out on business, even on regional routes to bring travellers to Malaysia or elsewhere in the region.
With next year being Visit Malaysia Year 2020, the downgrade may trigger a backlash.
Business Traveller magazine recently provided an insight on the potential repercussions: for someone booking a flight on American Airline’s website from Dallas to Kuala Lumpur, the airline’s bookings page only showed the Dallas-Hong Kong segment as operated by American Airlines and the Hong Kong-Kuala Lumpur segment as operated by Cathay Dragon.
Another option is to fly from Dallas to Tokyo Narita on American Airlines and then from Tokyo Narita to Hong Kong with Japan Airlines (JAL), a joint venture partner of American Airlines. There’s no option listed to fly to Kuala Lumpur from Hong Kong with Malaysia Airlines.
The magazine says that the flight with Malaysia Airlines is still listed on American Airline’s “Where we fly?” page, but if one selects that flight and clicks “Book A Flight”, the website directs the person to book American Airlines-Cathay Dragon and American Airlines-JAL flights only.
See the ramifications of the downgrade?
Malaysia has to pull up its socks and act fast to restore its previous status.
CAAM has requested the FAA to conduct a reassessment within the next 12 months.
Plans are also underway to address the findings of the ICAO audit as CAAM said it took the FAA’s assessment constructively and has moved to make serious changes.
Now that we’re under fire, perhaps it would be pertinent to re-visit the roles of CAAM and MAVCOM.
The right hand must know what the left hand is doing.
Is it a case of too many cooks spoiling the nasi lemak here?
Other than that, we must also engage experienced professionals who know the business inside out to fix lingering problems, raise the standards and bring on all-round excellent customer experience in the aviation industry.
For far too long, we’ve been doing things on a piece-meal basis.
The poor connectivity between KLIA’s main terminal and klia2, where airside passenger movements cannot be easily mounted, is a case in point.
A startling revelation from a study by some academics found that CAAM is hampered by inexperienced and underpaid staff, and lacked manpower!
Some soul-searching needs to be done by the authorities to provide new solutions and directions if we’re to soar proudly to the skies again.
The writer is a former chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of Bernama