Armenia aviation authority placed under closer EU safety monitoring

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia’s civil aviation regulator has been placed under increased monitoring by European safety authorities as part of a revision of the European Commission airline blacklist.

Scrutiny of the Armenian regulation is being stepped up after the country’s Civil Aviation Committee failed to convince European air safety specialists that it was providing sufficient oversight to carriers.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency discovered shortfalls in oversight when it carried out a visit to carriers Taron Avia and Atlantis European Airways in July this year, as part of a third-country authorisation process.

Taron Avia’s certificate was suspended as a result of the EASA findings and the carrier subsequently chose to cease operations.

The European Commission has increased its surveillance of the Civil Aviation Committee in its latest blacklist revision, although it stopped short of formally banning any Armenian airlines, a report on FlightGlobal says.

It states that EASA concluded, after its visit, that the committee had “not systematically followed the established certification process” when updating specifications for Taron Avia and Atlantis European.

“[The committee] could not provide assurances that it was systematically assessing the safety management systems, the continuing airworthiness systems, and the maintenance organisations of the air carriers that it had certified,” it adds.

“Furthermore [the committee] was lacking capacity to identify significant non-compliances with international safety standards by the air carriers.”

It adds that the Civil Aviation Committee was informed that it should only undertake to issue air operator’s certificates, and include aircraft on the Armenian registry, “if and when it has a full capability to oversee them”.