Civil Aviation Authority asks airlines to rationalise airfares

KARACHI: Airlines have been directed to take steps to rationalise airfares in order to cater to the people by Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Aviation Secretary and Director General Shahrukh Nusrat as he presided over the second meeting of the Aviation Oversight Committee recently held here at the CAA headquarters.

He further informed that the PM Imran Khan has directed that all air operators in compliance with scheduled air carriers would be required to operate 5% of their total capacity of available seat kilometres (ASKs) on primary routes, and another 5% on socio-economic routes.

The participants attending the meeting were briefed about a proposal submitted by the CAA to further relax the aircraft age requirements — especially for air cargo and flying schools — as stated in Annex-G of National Aviation Policy (NAP)-2019. The CAA has approved the said amendments and the matter is in process at the Aviation Division for approval, he added.

The Secretary also briefed that all the CAA regulations are being revised in order to align with NAP-2019. The operators are being lined with new regulations.

Under the Tourism Promotion & Regional Integration (TPRI) Licence, the seating capacity condition had been removed from NAP-2019 and would be decided by the authority (CAA) due to aircraft availability issues for flight operations.

On the orders of the PM, Mr Nusrat told that all operators operating to or from Pakistan have been directed to use paper or biodegradable material instead of plastic/polythene bags. This step has been taken to ensure that the aviation sector contributed positively to environment-friendly measures being initiated in the country.

He said that the Aviation Division and the CAA will ensure continuous monitoring and improvement through feedback from operators through the Aviation Oversight Committee meetings, he said.

Furthermore, after identifying issues related to flying schools and clubs, an exclusive meeting has been scheduled on September 16 in Islamabad to resolve these matters.

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