The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has finalized its new ‘fair sky policy’ or the National Aviation Policy (NAP) 2019 after deliberations with the local stakeholders. The new policy aims to promote local players to compete with international airlines while reviving the aviation sector by facilitating and regulating the stakeholders.
Once approved by the Federal Cabinet, the new policy would replace the existing ‘open sky policy’, bringing a number of “direct and indirect benefits and incentives for airline operators, pilots/cabin crew and most importantly the passengers traveling by air within Pakistan.”
The policy has been introduced to uplift the loss-making national flag carrier, Pakistan International Airline (PIA) and other local airlines, however, travel agents fear that this would result in increasing ticket prices due to the monopoly of domestic carriers. It would be difficult for the local airlines to meet the growing demand of passengers due to a lack of resources.
The previous governments did not believe in ‘protectionism and restrictive market access policy’ as they believed the approach to limit the growth potential of the aviation sector in Pakistan.
The policy draft is a mutually-consented document, tabled with inputs from stakeholders while addressing the proposals put forth by the participants of the meet-up at the CAA headquarters in Karachi.
The session was chaired by Aviation Secretary Shahrukh Nusrat. CAA was represented by Air Vice Marshal Tanweer Ashraf Bhatti who is the additional director general, and Syed Aamir Mehboob, Khawar Ghayas, Air Commodore Syed Nasir Raza Hamdani – deputy director generals.
According to the CAA statement, the stakeholders praised the following proposals put forth in the draft:
- Licenses validity to be increased from one year to two years
- Development of maintenance repair organizations and aircraft manufacturing industry
- Rationalization of CAA aeronautical charges on domestic sectors
- Benefits, opportunities, and incentives for airlines and operators
Representatives of different stakeholders including Serene Air, Air Blue, K2 Airways, Vision Air, Air Sial, Air Indus, Princely Jet, Air Falcon, Liberty Air, Afeef Zara Airways, Hybrid Technique, Aircraft Sales and Service Limited, International Air Travel Association, Scaled Aviation Industries and PIA chief were also in attendance.
Featured Image via TTG Asia
Via Dawn
