EQUATORIAL GUINEA REVOKES OPERATING LICENSES

[AAL]

Announced in the news that Equatorial Guinea Minister of Transport today revoked all but one Air Services Licenses and AOC's.

The step follows an inspection and scrutiny by the South African CAA to assist with cleaning-up the EG register after concerns about the condition of and widescale abuse of the EG register.

Hopefully this is an important step to start cleaning up Africa's aviation image that will improve standards in Africa and serve as a start to clean up this previously and other registries of convenience that has given our industry such a negative reputation.

Wonder who's next, Swaziland ? - Dem Republic of Congo could certainly also do with a shake-up. Getting rid of all these otherwise unregulatable aircraft that cannot be registered anywhere else might just create more opportunity for sincere african operators to get access to opportunities that these pirates hog at rock-bottom rates which are impossible to compete with on an equal footing.

[SAT_BOSS]

Excellent! Some Operators do work very hard to get a proper AOC working and then you have the shades of dark coming in at night /// and people fly aircraft around like taxis with improper paper work.

Clean up the mess and also people that have the money but no inclination to do a proper AOC should be forced to do so; Humanitarians come to mind ....

[Heli-Jet]

Hopefully they are serious with all the oil money being poured into the country, Angola was smart with even beating SA into mandating TCAS's.
EG has Malabo, Bata, Mongomo, Annobon and Corisco(new airport) so they can get the job done quickly and easily....small country

[Heli-Jet]

Luanda - May 17, 2006
An air traffic controller course started Tuesday in Luanda, under the National Company of Airports and Air Navigation (ENANA), Angop learned.
Addressing the opening session, ENANA managing board chairman, Jorge dos Santos Correia de Melo, said that during the training the students will learn practical and theoretical skills on air traffic control.
He also appealed to trainees to devote to the course, taking into account that air traffic is on the rise in the country and world and the activity of controllers is mainly directed to saving human lives.
The course that will follow international standards certified by the International Civil Aviation Organisation will last 11 months and is being attended by 24 Angolans and eight São Tomese

[Heli-Jet]

When you consider ASECNA is the responsible ATC authority in West Africa. Their service is expensive and at the best of times pathetic. Take a look at their website http://www.ais-asecna.org to see what you get. Then speak to the operators and see who even subscribes to them as the operating authority, or even has their manual on base and if they do are they up to date.

In EG their ATC controllers don't even know how to use the correct RT for a hold, I think it is because of the the Russian's being a bunch of cowboys in the airspace, and ATC not knowing how to handle them.
Secondly, the training of ATC by ASECNA is pathetic. If you look at Doualla, Libreville and Malabo. the best of the 3 is a close tie between FKKD and FOOL.

Libreville(FOOL) has weather Radar, no computers for filing flight plans or paying landing fees. ILS vailable

Doualla(FKKD) doesn't have Wx radar, no computers as above, ILS available

Malabo, has nothing, ILS available. Comms pathetic if you fly from Bata or Libreville to Malabo, their repeater station gets struck by lightning or the generator runs out of diesel. If you don't have a GPS forget trying to get to Potob, you can only pickup the VOR signal 26nm from Malabo as well as ATC

So the question begs, where is all the money being spent by ASECNA ?????
EG could fix their problem very quickly by getting rid of ASECNA and get a 1st world ATC unit to set them up quickly and properly if they want to be accepted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation - follow Angola's example

[Heli-Jet]

Malabo - Equatorial Guinea's ministry of transport has grounded the planes of all but one of the country's 20 air transport firms, including the national carrier, state radio said on Tuesday.
The national airline, Ecuatoguineana de Aviacion (EGA), and 18 other firms had their operating licences annulled on Monday by deputy transport minister Miguel Iyanga Djoba following an inspection of aircraft fleets by South African experts.
Only General Works Aviacion, which is a private operator, was allowed to remain in business, pending verified improvements in safety and airworthiness standards by other companies, the radio report said.
The other firms failed to meet standards laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organisation and no carrier "can undertake commercial air transport operations without a valid airworthiness certificate", according to a ministerial decision.
The South African experts were called in after the crash on July 16 2005, of an Antonov 24 operated by a private company while on a flight from Malabo to Bata. The plane went down shortly after takeoff, killing 81 people known to have crammed aboard an aircraft with a theoretical capacity of 48 passengers and four crew.

[Heli-Jet]

[Since the crash landing of July 2005, the authorities of Malabo however posted their will to react. Initially by prohibiting temporarily flights of the old men Antonov and Yak which equipped the majority with their companies.

Then while deciding to make disappear “their” company EGA with the profit from a new “ambitious” company, for which they have just bought three Franco-Italian planes ATR new. This contract signed on May 19 in France by president Teodoro Obiang Nguema also envisages, in the long term, the installation of a workshop of maintenance in Equatorial Guinea.

In the decree published Tuesday, the ministry for Transport finally began so that each owner is from now on “titular of a valid certificate of owner of the air services or of an equivalent document”.

This promise intervenes two weeks after the meeting with Libreville of the ministers in load of Air transport of the 53 African Convention countries (UA), which were committed restoring from here 2008 “safety” and “transparency” in their sector.] translated version from Dernieres Minutes - French press

[Heli-Jet]

IATA has publicly shamed four African countries for not taking action to improve aviation safety.
Director-general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said at the association's annual general meeting in Paris today: "A responsible industry cannot tolerate even a few governments that don't take safety seriously. The safety record of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea and Swaziland is an embarrassment for our industry."
He adds: "The last three have taken some action. But we need results fast. Flags of convenience have no place in a safe industry."
Bisignani says airlines transported 2 billion people safely last year and "despite the financial crisis, the 2005 accident rate was our lowest ever".
He adds: "Industry wide we had one accident for every 1.3 million flights. And for IATA member airlines the accident rate was one for every 2.9 million flights. What an amazing result."
Meanwhile, securing IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) status is set to become a requirement for membership in the association.:D
A resolution was passed at the annual general meeting today stating that as of the end of 2007 the loss of IOSA registry status will result in the loss of IATA membership.
IATA says 189 of its members "are now in the IOSA process".:ok:

[Heli-Jet]

"In their current state it would take the Second Coming for SACAA to pass a JAA certification audit" ....Quote from SA Validation thread

IF the EGCAA wants to potentially get the approval of flying their airlines into Europe, why not get a JAA audit, instead of messing around with the SACAA. After all the SACAA want to go the JAA route anyway.

[Heli-Jet]

Iata said it was also concerned about Africa's poor aviation safety record. Although the continent accounted for about 4% of the global air traffic, its accident rate, at 25%, was the highest.
Iata has named the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea and Swaziland as countries where governments "don't take air safety seriously".
Relevant LinksInternational Organizations and Africa (http://allafrica.com/io/)
Travel and Tourism (http://allafrica.com/travel/)
Of the 39 African Iata member airlines, only SAA, Kenya Airways, EgyptAir and Air Maroc have completed International Civil Aviation Organisation safety audits.

[Heli-Jet]

The IATA Annual General Meeting formally approved a resolution requiring that all IATA member airlines be IOSA [IATA Operational Safety Audit] registered. All new members of the association will be required to pass IOSA before they join. And all existing members must contract for an IOSA audit by the end of 2006 and complete an audit by the end of 2007 to retain membership. Also, IATA honoured two governments—Chile and Egypt—for promoting safety by incorporating the IOSA into their safety oversight programmes. (IATA) :D

[Heli-Jet]

Upset that Africa`s poor aviation safety record is not improving, the World Bank and the IATA have decided to reward those countries that make a concerted effort to improve safety and punish those that do not. The World Bank is already withholding millions of euros of aid from countries that do not enforce world aviation safety standards, and has now announced a program of $150 million in grants and credits to reward those countries in West Africa and Central Africa that agree to work together to improve safety. (International Herald Tribune)

One wonders if this was the motivating factor for Equatorial Guinea Minister of Transport today revoked all but one Air Services Licenses and AOC's. Is this a cash grab for the EG CAA

[Heli-Jet]

PARIS (http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=PARIS&sort=swishrank) Upset that Africa's poor aviation safety record is not improving, the World Bank and the association that represents most of the world's airlines have decided to reward those countries that make a concerted effort to improve safety and punish those that do not.
The World Bank is already withholding millions of euros of aid from countries that do not enforce world aviation safety standards, and has now announced a program of $150 million in grants and credits to reward those countries in West Africa and Central Africa that agree to work together to improve safety.
This is the first of several programs intended to cover all of Africa.
On Monday, the International Air Transport Association, which represents 95 percent of the world's airlines, is scheduled to reveal its tightly held list of unsafe African countries and will eject the airlines of those countries from membership, according to Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the group.
Bisignani also is expected to ask the association's governing body to expel any airline that refuses a detailed safety audit by the organization.
The International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal, an agency of the United Nations, has been concerned about safety initiatives in Africa and has been working with the World Bank to coordinate the two programs. The United States has also graded countries on the quality of their aviation safety regulatory programs for years.
However, "there has never been a regional safety and security agency in Africa," Charles Schlumberger, principal air transport specialist with the World Bank, said. "The efforts were small, just here and there."
Part of the problem is that it has been more profitable for some officials of African governments to look the other way on safety. International law enforcement and aviation groups say that criminal organizations sometimes offer large amounts of money to African officials to allow their countries to be used as transit points for illegal activities. Those activities include easy certification of airliners that could never pass safety checks in developed nations.
Some countries have found it very profitable to rubber-stamp certification of airlines and aircraft, perhaps never seeing them.
Among the worst of the known offenders was Swaziland in southern Africa, where dozens of shadow airlines were certified, according to officials of world aviation groups and the country's own recent admission. The country said at a meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization this year that it was working to improve its certification process.
Now, with a firm carrot-and-stick approach from the World Bank and other organizations, Schlumberger said countries that did not work seriously and openly toward aviation safety would find millions of dollars in aid for air transportation infrastructure suddenly cut off.
Countries that exhibit a marked effort to improve safety yet lack the money or expertise to follow through would receive help from more advanced African countries, he said.
As most of the world's skies have grown safer, particularly Western Europe and the United States, Africa's safety record has shown no improvement.
An air passenger is 30 times more likely to die in a crash in Africa than in the world's safest country for aviation, the United States, according to the World Bank, the air transport association and other aviation groups.
China and some parts of Asia have made great progress on air safety in the past few years. Now, China and countries like Pakistan have offered financial aid and expertise to poorer Asian countries that want to build safe aviation systems.
Although the World Bank has quietly cut off aviation aid to some African countries that failed its safety test, the current 23-country program is to be more organized and more public.
"We don't expect all 23 countries to qualify," Schlumberger said.
Four countries in the 23-nation group have already qualified for grants or credits under the new program -credits of $6.46 million for Burkina Faso and $5.51 million for Mali, and grants of $14.5 million to Cameroon and $7.1 million to Guinea.
"This region of 23 African nations has experienced a poor safety record and security record in the past," the World Bank said in a statement. "However, the declared willingness of the African governments to improve the situation, the increased international pressure against unsafe carriers and poor regulatory oversight, and the bank's understanding that safe, secure and reliable air transportation services are key for economic development, were the driving arguments for this innovative project."
Although the World Bank does not explicitly say so, officials said the organization believes that forming regional groups - and multilateral safety and security enforcement bodies within these groups - would make it far more difficult for one national leader to take payoffs and subvert safety efforts.
Schlumberger said that previous, more modest efforts have shown that countries with safety poor records could improve when given help. He said that the first World Bank "success story" occurred in Cape Verde, which has earned a top grade in a U.S. safety audit.
"That inspired us," Schlumberger said.