Putting on the brakes

An ICAO audit in January found several areas of concern in Thailand, including personnel licensing and training, airworthiness assessment and certification, accident investigation and airline operations oversight and licensing. Like many countries in the region Thailand has also suffered from a serious shortage of safety inspectors and its procedures for granting air operator licences and certificates of airworthiness have been questioned. Another issue is that Bangkok allows the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) to both license airlines and operate airports.

This is seen as a conflict by the ICAO. It is understood the DCA was able to meet only 21 out of 100 requirements imposed by ICAO.

These concerns aren’t actually about individual airlines but the regulatory authorities, although in the end it is the carriers which suffer from any downgrades or bans imposed.

Thailand was given 90 days to remedy the problems but by last month (April) it was clear ICAO still wasn’t satisfied and China, Japan and Korea quickly showed their lack of confidence in Bangkok being able to meet the challenge. Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing civil aviation authorities apparently decided not to wait for an official ICAO downgrade, telling Thailand all new charter and schedule flights operated by Thai-registered aircraft were being banned with immediate effect. Airlines currently flying can continue operating but can’t change aircraft type or the routes they serve.

It’s a huge blow to the expansion plans of those operating into the three big travel markets and for LCCs with plans to join the fray. An inaugural service from Bangkok to Korea’s gateway hub, Incheon airport, by just-launched NokScoot, scheduled for May 10, had to be halted as well as planned charter flights to Tokyo Narita, even though 20,000 seats had already been sold. New Thai AirAsia X flights to link Bangkok to Sapporo in Japan from this month (May) have also been grounded. A host of smaller charter airlines, which had also sold thousands of tickets for travel to Japan during the busy Songkran festival period in April, were also grounded.

An ICAO audit found several areas of concern in Thailand.

Not surprisingly, Thailand is a little miffed by the action. Its Transport Minister Air Chief Marshal Prajin Juntong described it as “a premature reaction to air safety issues” and sent a delegation off to Japan, Korea, China, Germany and several other countries to discuss the situation and attempt to convince local authorities that all Thai airlines strictly follow safety requirements. He said the DCA had proposed corrections in response to ICAO’s concerns, but the plan was rejected with a demand for more improvements. The minister, a former chief of the Thai air force, said military-provided powers will be used to improve the country’s air safety rating.

While mainstream airlines such as state-owned Thai Airways will only be seriously impacted if an official ICAO downgrade is imposed and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) follows suit, or Europe imposes black bans on Thai aircraft as it did with Indonesia and the Philippines until early this year, it is the budgeteers who will take the brunt now. LCCs have virtually become the mainstream in Thailand.

Their domestic traffic in the first two months of this year soared 42. 2 per cent to 4. 98 million, and their international passengers climbed 38. 9 per cent to 2. 43 million. Budget airline aircraft movements rose in tandem, climbing 26. 1 per cent year-on-year to 50,000. Passengers flying on LCCs now account for 39. 6 per cent of the overall passenger traffic through Thai airports. The main issue with the safety concern is that domestic passenger growth is slowing, meaning the no-frills operators are more and more looking to international regional destinations, and particularly huge markets like China, Korea and Japan, to fill their growing number of jets.

There’s another concern. None of this helps the safety image of the entire region, already blackened by the travails of regulators in Indonesia and the Philippines. India has also received a poor safety rating from ICAO.