LAHORE, Nov 28: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has submitted the National Aviation Policy draft to caretaker Prime Minister Mianmuhammad Soomro for final approval.
CAA Director-General Farooq Rahmatullah told Dawn that the authority’s board of directors had approved the proposed aviation policy in a meeting held a couple of days ago.
The DG will implement the policy after its approval by the prime minister.
Salient features of the policy are; the paid-up capital for regular public transport license shall be Rs500 million, which shall be reviewed periodically by the authority’s board. The current operators will enhance their paid up capital to Rs500 million within a period of two years from the date of approval of the policy.
Fleet registration in Pakistan shall be mandatory for all Pakistani aircraft operators except for pure cargo aircraft. Requirement of minimum fleet size for a regulator public transport license aircraft holder shall have at least three airworthy aircraft for domestic operations and four for international operations.
There shall be no permanent addition to capacity by inducting foreign registered aircraft on wet lease other than pure cargo aircraft. Temporary induction of foreign registered aircraft on wet lease may be permitted under extraordinary circumstances for a short period subject to minimum 90 days.
The CAA as a regulator shall oversee, intervene and mediate in case of predatory pricing and practices in the interest of travelling people. All fares shall continue to remain deregulated and the CAA shall make rules, regulations and procedures to redress public grievances and adjudicate these on merit.
There shall be no government taxes on the purchase of air tickets for travel to\from secondary airports, on aviation fuel consumed for operations and no landing and housing charges at the secondary airports.
Pakistani scheduled airlines shall operate on domestic routes for at least one year before commencing operations on international routes. Operations to at least one secondary airport shall be mandatory for new airlines after a period of three years, starting from the date of operations.
There shall be no mandatory commercial agreements as part of bilateral agreements, however, airlines shall be free to enter into such cooperative marketing arrangements as are mutually agreeable, which will be outside of air services agreements.
Pakistan shall continue to follow open skies policy for cargo operations based on third, fourth and fifth freedom traffic rights. Karachi and Gwadar shall be promoted as transshipment hubs. Cargo villages shall be established on public-private partnership at major international airports and linked with NTC.
Private sector shall be free to construct and operate new\existing airports\airstrips\helipad\heliports, including cargo complexes, on BOO, BOT or any other management arrangement and to raise non-aeronautical revenues from these premises. Privatization of airports shall be pursued to make them more efficient and productive.
Airport cities shall be developed on public-private partnership at all major airports.