India was saved a huge international embarrassment on Wednesday when the US Federal Aviation Administration decided against downgrading the country’s aviation safety standards from the current top billing to sub-Sahara Africa level. The aviation ministry let the agency responsible for ensuring safe flying, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), weaken over years despite the International Civil Aviation Organisation pointing out major deficiencies in 2006 and air traffic in India growing by leaps and bounds.
Finally, earlier this year, the FAA came for an audit and gave five months before downgrading it, something that would have meant no new flights by Indian airlines to America and strict checks for their planes on US soil. In this short timeframe, aviation secretary M M Nambiar and DGCA’s new chief Nasim Zaidi mounted a herculean effort to strengthen the regulatory mechanism by getting almost 600 technical posts sanctioned for effective implementation of much needed rules for safe flying that were also put in place. Now as a result, Indian carriers will be able to able to expand service in US through more flights and new access points.
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