FAA ANNOUNCES NEW POLICY RELATED TO IASA PROGRAM
October 7, 2022
On September 28, 2022, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) published new guidance related to changes to the International Aviation Safety Assessment (“IASA”) program. This comes two days after FAA announced that it would change its policy regarding IASA safety categorizations for other countries.
Specifically, FAA has said that it will begin working with countries early on when it sees indications that their civil aviation authorities (“CAA”) are not meeting safety standards. FAA noted that it will exercise discretion by providing a CAA with an informal notification of safety concerns and request to begin discussions with the CAA to try to resolve the issues before initiating the formal IASA process through which a country can be downgraded from Category 1 to Category 2. By doing so, FAA will work to assist a country with addressing developing safety risks rather than simply downgrading its safety category. The new policy does however allow FAA to utilize some safety mitigation strategies. For example, after it notifies a country of a safety concern it can limit direct service to the U.S. by its carriers, limit codesharing operations by foreign operators, and place limits on certain bilateral agreement while it reviews whether the country should be downgraded.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6665).
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