US Fed audit reveals PHL aircraft inspectors get free rides from airlines

The deficiencies that continue to hound the Philippine aviation industry, as spelled out by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in a technical review, can derail its tourism goals, a Malacañang official said Wednesday.   The FAA noted in a summary report — cited in an article on Bloomberg Businessweek online — aircraft and airport facilities inspectors lack qualifications to do their job and they even get free rides on airlines they are inspecting, while airlines that fail to meet regulatory requirements are certified.   In the technical review last Jan. 23 to 27, the regulator cited 23 “critical elements” the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines must address before raising its aviation status back to Category 1.   Category 2 “prevents us from promoting fully our tourism industry,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told reporters at a briefing in Malacañang.   “We are always concerned, especially [because] we are promoting tourism as one of our growth sectors. And so, we would like to harness also the markets in Europe. We are concerned about accelerating the efforts to remove us out of Category 2 status,” the Palace official said. The Department of Tourism expects some 4.2 million tourists this year. The medium-term target is 10 million tourists by 2016.   Because of safety and management issues, the FAA downgraded the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) in 2007 and capped US-bound flights from the Southeast Asian nation.   The European Union followed suit in 2010 and barred Philippine airlines from its airports.   Category 2 does not mean Philippine carriers are banned from flying to the US, but they cannot add new US routes until all issues are resolved, according to the CAAP.   According to a "Philippine Star" report, the FAA review found CAAP’s Philippine Civil Aviation Regulations “unenforceable” with “numerous wording errors.”   “Discussions revealed that inspectors travel on a non-revenue ticket basis at the expense of the operator while performing job functions for the operator. Requiring inspectors to travel on a non-revenue ticket basis at the expense of the operator while performing job functions for the operator presents an obvious conflict of interest,” Philstar said in its report, citing FAA auditors.   The auditors were Jacques Astre, Greg Michael, Andre Lamarre, and Bevery Sharkey.   The FAA report noted CAAP lacked documentation of its computerized records under the Civil Aviation Safety Reporting and Tracking System. “A review of these records revealed record keeping errors that caused confusion and a lack of hard copies made the records incomplete.”   It noted the deficiency in evaluating the quality of personnel training, “casting doubt on the qualifications of these personnel to conduct pilot skill tests and aircraft worthiness checks,” the newspaper report said.   In a forum with the Anvil Business Club, a Filipino-Chinese business group, last Friday evening, President Benigno Aquino III said his administration is working double time to secure Category 1 status anew and remove the country from the European aviation blacklist.   CAAP has claimed said the critical elements are relatively minor issues that are being addressed by the government, which include fine-tuning the Philippine Civil Air Regulations, changing CAAP’s safety and oversight structure, updating its database storing system, standardizing the certification of safety inspectors, and revalidation of airline carriers.   Once the stumbling-blocks are removed, Aquino said he expects the number of foreign tourists to increase. "The Philippines’s safety rating has been lowered from Category 1 to Category 2 under the agency’s International Aviation Safety Assessment program," according to an FAA statement in January 2008. It explained that a Category 1 rating means the country’s civil aviation authority complies with International Civil Aviation Organization standards. "A Category 2 rating means a country either lacks laws or regulations necessary to oversee air carriers in accordance with minimum international standards, or that its civil aviation authority — equivalent to the FAA — is deficient in one or more areas, such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record-keeping or inspection procedures."— with Amita Legaspi and Rouchelle Dinglasan/VS/HS, GMA News