TANZANIA CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY TO CONSIDER APPLICATIONS
Applicants for Air Service Licenses and licenses for ground handling and other service elements in aviation, including maintenance (MRO) and training facilities were yesterday invited by the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority to send in their formal applications and related documentation. The Board of the TCAA will hold its next licensing meeting reportedly on May 18th at which it will decide on the merits of each and every application submitted.
In a related comment have aviators demanded that the multiplicity of permits and licenses across East Africa be streamlined and simplified with one in particular saying: ‘We now have joint East African Air Service Regulations which were developed by all partner states, ratified and have been implemented. So we are actually working under the same regulatory requirements. We then also have CASSOA, the Civil Aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency which is now based in Entebbe. They have also implemented and demanded a re-certification of all licensed airlines which was mandatory for all licence holders of an AOC, maintenance or training facility. Now why do we still have to go to each member state’s CAA to get an ASL or an AOC or be approved as an MRO, when the licensing process is the same everywhere. Once we have a license in say TZ this should be valid also in Kenya or Uganda or Rwanda.’
This in fact is a sentiment often expressed ahead of licensing meetings when the aviation fraternity time and again raises such issues, but promises made to aviators, ostensibly to sign on to the partly controversial regulatory regime, that an ombudsman position would be established, have not been honoured, as have other verbal commitments been discarded, leaving many aviators embittered and angry with their national regulators.
Watch this space..
