Thailand will benefit from establishing an autonomous aviation agency to watch over airport safety and security as well as other aviation issues, a visiting expert from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) said yesterday.

Dr Ludwig Weber, consultant and former director of ICAO's Legal Bureau, said Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) under the Transport Ministry should be transformed into the autonomous Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to establish its role as the country's regulator of airport operations.

Weber said it is ICAO's policy to encourage its member states, including Thailand, to "demonstrate political will to address aviation safety shortcomings" including the establishment of an autonomous civil aviation authority with the power and adequate funds to provide effective safety oversight of airports, for the benefit of passengers and aviation industry.

"It is important to separate regulatory from service functions," Weber said. "The CAA will have state power to oversee the airport operator to make sure it does not abuse its monopoly position and operates at all time in a safe manner."

Weber gave a presentation about the benefits of establishing the CAA to aviation personnel in Bangkok, including those from the DCA, the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand and Thai Airways International on Monday.

The ICAO's legal expert also raised the same issue with Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen and Deputy Minister Sansern Wongchaum yesterday.

Theera was reportedly interested in the ICAO's recommendation and said a study would be needed to guide a smooth transformation of the DCA into the CAA.

While the Airports of Thailand (AOT) plays the operator role for key airports in Thailand - and the DCA is supposed to be the regulator - it has been unclear how much authority the DCA has to regulate the AOT, which is now a private entity.

There was also a potential conflict of interest as the DCA's director Chaisak Angsuwan also sat on the board of executives of the AOT.

Being understaffed and under-financed have impeded DCA's role in safeguarding the safety and security of airport operations in the country. For example, the airport standards division have less than 10 officials while their jobs are supposedly to audit safety of nearly 60 airports in Thailand.

Unclear job description and lack of a legal mechanism to support its regulatory function became a problem when Thailand rushed to open the controversial Suvarnabhumi Airport last September.

The DCA was responsible for issuing the Aerodrome Certificate to Suvarnabhumi as required by ICAO's new regulation. However, the six-month interim certificate it had issued to the new airport in July had no legal binding because Thai aviation law still did not recognise this new responsibility of the DCA - nor the new international requirement.

To upgrade the department into an autonomous agency, Weber told The Nation it would be equipped with both a legal foundation and technical expertise to audit safety and security of airports to ensure they meet international standards for certification.

The controversial Suvarnab-humi Airport is now left in a certification's no man's land.

Apart numerous safety problems on both the runways and passenger terminal plaguing the airport, the Transport Ministry also found the DCA had no authority to issue a certification for the airport.

Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The Nation