Swedish CAA safety regulators have effectively forced charter operator Transjet Airways to ground its fleet after threatening to revoke the carrier’s air operator’s certificate (AOC) if it fails to address CAA concerns.
Transjet Airways has an three-strong fleet of Boeing 747-200s and five Boeing MD-83s, primarily leased from Finova Capital, on holiday routes to European, African and Middle East destinations. The airline was founded two years ago, initially conducting business for UK tour operators. It has hubs in Sweden, Greece and the UK.
While the CAA declines to give specific details of the issues involved, it says that it is unhappy with certain procedures at the carrier, although pointing out that the airline has so far shown willingness to co-operate with the regulators.
Swedish CAA aviation safety policy section head Egil Cederborg says: “We have a lack of confidence in the management of the company. We’ve given [Transjet] terms on things which need to be corrected, and parts of the management which need to be changed, to restore the quality system to the way it was intended to be.
“We gave them an ‘offer they could not refuse’ – the alternative [to voluntarily resolving the issue] was the revocation of their AOC.”
He says that it is unclear how the carrier is organising certain aspects of its business – systems to assess pilot qualifications, for example, “might be in place” but nevertheless need clarification.
Cederborg stresses, however, that the carrier has demonstrated “goodwill to act” and adds that the CAA “did not want that effort to be wasted”. But he says that it is important for the carrier to show “not just lip service but to re-engineer the company as such”.
Transjet Airways management could not immediately be reached for comment.
