KARACHI: The aviation secretary and director general of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Shahrukh Nusrat, has asked the airlines to take necessary steps to rationalise their airfares, especially on occasions of religious significance.

He was presiding over the second meeting of the Aviation Oversight Committee recently held here at the CAA headquarters.

He informed the air operators that in compliance with the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan, all scheduled air carriers would be required to operate five per cent of their total capacity available seat kilometres (ASKs) on primary routes and another 5pc on socio-economic routes.

In case of non-compliance of the above directives, the RPT(s)/airline(s) not operating on the primary and socio-economic routes would compensate the RPT(s)/airline(s) operating on these routes for the loss, if any, suffered from subject operations, he added.

He also informed the participants in the meeting that the CAA had submitted a proposal for further relaxation in 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 told the participants that all the CAA regulations had been revised to align with NAP-2019. The operators were being brought in line with the new regulations. Accordingly, the implementation of the condition of three billing cycles would be finalised in due course of time for RPT licence holders.

The participants were also told that due to aircraft availability issues for flight operations 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) after due deliberation on a case to case basis.

Mr Nusrat further said that as per directions of the prime minister, all operators operating to or from Pakistan were required to use paper or biodegradable material instead of conventional plastic/polythene bags ensuring that the aviation sector contributed positively to environment-friendly measures being initiated in the country.

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

When an air operator highlighted constraints in importing spare parts/engines for aircraft because of a State Bank policy, the aviation secretary assured him of a meeting with SBP officials to resolve the issue.

On pointing out a few issues related to flying schools and clubs, the aviation secretary promised to hold an exclusive meeting for that purpose which now had been scheduled for Sept 16 at Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2019