KARACHI, Feb 19: Civil Aviation Authority’s decision to buy two new calibration aircraft will allow it to expand its flight inspection and calibration services to countries such as Iran, Iraq, the Philippines and the Central Asian states and recover the cost within three years, a top-ranking official said.

“After purchasing the two new aircraft, we will not only calibrate the landing and visual equipment of our own airfields but also expand this service to other nations. I believe we will recover the cost of the aircraft in two-and-a-half to three years,” the deputy director-general of the CAA, Air Vice-Marshall Safdar Khan told Dawn.

The CAA board recently approved the purchase of two calibration aircraft, for which an international tender has been floated. The authority has a 30-year-old Beech King Air 200 aircraft, which not only calibrates the country’s airfields but also goes to the UAE, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan for flight inspection and calibration.

The authority is also in touch with several other countries for providing the flight inspection and calibration service.

The deputy DG said that at present the CAA was negotiating a deal with the Philippines for flight inspection and calibration and after acquiring the two aircraft the authority would market its services to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Central Asian states.

Explaining the decision to buy new aircraft, AVM Safdar Khan said it was taken to replace the ageing aircraft and also to earn foreign exchange by offering this service to other countries, because the CAA had an experience of over 30 years in flight inspection and calibration.

“If we calibrate our airfields by hiring foreign calibration aircraft then we have to pay double the cost of the two aircraft as service charges over three years,” he added.

He also said that the old calibration aircraft, which had recently met with an accident in Sharjah, was under repair and the authority would get it back in 15 to 20 days. At the moment, he said, the Pakistan Air Force is helping the CAA in fight inspection and calibration.