The new organisational structure of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has been notified, with the CAA being trifurcated into three separate divisions — regulatory, airport and operations, and support.

In a notification dated Jan 5, the authority said that the CAA Board had in September of last year approved its functional separation, "whereupon the functions of the [CAA] have been separated with respect to its role as regulator and service provider".

"Accordingly, the Authority has now been transformed into three divisions namely Regulatory, Airport and Operations and Support Functions."

The notification stated that the objective of the separation was to ensure "microlevel management with intense focus on each function in pursuance of the vision and mission of the Authority". It added that special emphasis would be laid on enhancing the CAA's role as regulator and making it "more robust for safe and secure civil aviation affairs of the country".

The implementation of the new organisational structure would start "immediately", according to the notification, and officers would be appointed to vacant positions as per the approved structure.

Earlier this week, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan had said the separation of CAA functions was being done in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements.

The minister said CAA had offered its employees the choice to transfer from one department to another based on their skills and qualifications as part of its restructuring into different divisions.

The CAA board in September 2020 had approved the functional separation of CAA into two divisions in line with a decision of the federal cabinet.

Following the decision, a management plan was made for smooth transitioning of the functional separation of the aviation regulator.

If an employee belonged to the family of airports and operations division trade but due to their experience was working in the regulatory division or vice versa, they were given a choice to opt for transfer of service in the division of their choice.

The CAA Human Resource directorate had asked its employees for their willingness for transfer of service in the division of their choice with fulfilling the criterion of any post. Interested employees were directed to submit their willingness by Jan 15.

Transfer of service application forms — containing an undertaking — were offered to CAA employees with terms and conditions.

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The CAA has come under fire in recent months after the May 2020 plane crash in Karachi in which 97 people were killed. The aviation minister had blamed the pilots and air traffic control (ATC) officials for the crash, saying they did not follow set procedures.

He had also claimed that "almost 40 per cent pilots in the country had fake licences". Following the minister's revelation, countries around the world had demanded that licences of Pakistani pilots be verified.

After a months-long investigation, the CAA in September said the issue of suspected pilots' licences had reached its conclusion after completion of an inquiry and verification process and action against 82 pilots.