The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) is moving steadfastly to become fully compliant with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) ahead of the rush of economic activities that Guyana is expected to experience upon oil production in two years’ time.
Director-General of the GCAA, ret’d Lieutenant Colonel Egbert Field, said last week that, within recent years, the local aviation industry has moved a good way up the ladder towards the ICAO standards – something which the international body is very pleased with.
“They displayed their pleasant feeling when they presented us with the President’s Certificate last year. So we are moving [forward]. We are training our staff and spending a lot in that area in order to ensure that there is a robust authority to meet the challenges of tomorrow, and the challenges are coming very fast,” Field posited.
According to the Director General, these challenges are fast approaching, especially with operation of the oil and gas industry being imminent.
“You cannot understand or imagine what we will face in another year. With the extended runway and the expanded airport, we are looking to have travellers from as far as Africa, and even Europe, coming into Guyana. As I say to my staff, ‘There is a tsunami ahead of us, and we’ve got to work hard and build this authority for robust oversight of the [aviation] industry ’,” he asserted.
Field said the GCAA’s main goal is to ensure the skies are safe. “Safety is paramount in our work from day to day, and we will continue to ensure that this remains the focal point of each and every single member of the Civil and Aviation Authority,” Field told media operatives.
The Director-General had earlier listed safety regulations as a top priority for the GCAA this year.
In fact, he had noted that one of the GCAA’s primary goals in 2018 is to amend its regulations to comply with the standards and recommended practices outlined by ICAO.
To this end, the Civil Aviation Bill was tabled in the National Assembly and sent to the Parliamentary Select Committee, which has since completed its work. The next stage now is for the House to adopt the Committee’s report. This is expected to be done before the end of the year.
The proposed legislation contains a revision of aviation regulations, which will include: safety management systems, regulations pertaining to drone operations, and revised operations regulations for the industry.
In addition to revising its regulations, GCAA also conducted a compliance and enforcement training programme in February, which is expected to play an integral role in aiding the Authority to respond positively to those items requested by ICAO, and bring GCAA closer towards compliance.
Guyana is currently third from the bottom in compliance ranking, having moved up one place. However, the Authority, which is currently around 70 percent in compliance, has been doing corrective actions to move towards 80 percent before the end of the year. In 2017, the Authority was awarded the ICAO Council President’s Certificate for its significant progress in safety oversight.
