Is CAAP helping the aviation industry or not?

This coming Feb. 21-24th is the celebration of “Everything that Flies” as it is the 18th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Festival, an event organized by Capt. Joy Roa of Air Safari TV fame. If there is any one who is single-handedly helping to promote the Aviation Industry in the Philippines, I take my hat off Capt. Joy Roa. Now the Balloon Festival is not just an international tourism drawer, it is one great domestic tourism drawer.

Alas, I cannot say this for the regulators of the aviation industry in the Philippines under the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) because it’s nearly three years under the Aquino regime and the country still wallows under Category 2. The opposition then (hey, aren’t these people in power now?) chastised then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for not fixing our Category 2 problem… but now they have only themselves to blame.

Meanwhile, five months have passed since the Aug. 18, 2012 crash off Masbate took the lives of Interior & Local Government (DILG) Sec. Jesse Robredo, Capt. Jessup Bahinting and his Nepalese co-pilot Kshitiz Chand and last Thursday I checked out the Aviatours Flying School and found out that until now, they are still closed. Wah! What’s up with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP)? What’s keeping them from allowing the Aviatours to operate their flying school again?

Last Sept. 13, we wrote a column where we reported that CAAP through it’s Deputy Director John Andrews told a Congressional Oversight Committee on CAAP that there was no foul play in the crash that took the lives of the passengers of the Aviatours Seneca II. In that same column we mentioned Ms. Tina Monzon Palma’s show “Talkback” entitled “How can Gov’t ensure the safety of light aircraft?” also had Director General William Hotchkiss III of CAAP talking about CAAP’s being a quasi-judicial body and that all aircraft here have to pass the Minimum Required Annual Inspection (MRAI) and an Airworthiness Certificate (AC).

So now that we understood all those technical jargon, my first question to CAAP officials is “Is CAAP under Pres. Aquino helping the aviation industry or not?” I’m asking this question because CAAP belongs to the Department of Transportation & Communications (DOTC), where its sister agencies like the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) or the Land Transportation Office (LTO) are deregulated, while CAAP is still so highly-centralize; all pilots or “would-be pilots” living out of Manila have a difficult time getting not only their pilot’s license, but even their medical checks. But I can get my driver’s license in Cebu or elsewhere.

What’s wrong with CAAP? Don’t they have qualified doctors to give medical checks to pilots living outside Metro Manila? Being so centralized, CAAP doesn’t even know that the windsock in Mactan runway is already in tatters. Just imagine, under nearly three years in the Aquino presidency, we are still wallowing under Category 2. CAAP can give us all the techno mambo jambo why they can’t get this thing going because of some Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and we can understand their difficulty… but a windsock?

A windsock is that bright orange tubular fabric that is placed horizontally on top of a pole so that pilots from a small Cessna 150 training plane to a mammoth Boeing 747-400 can look at it to check the wind direction. Perhaps CAAP can pin the blame on the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA), but that’s just another bureaucratic excuse. So will someone tell CAAP that a perfectly working windsock is vital to the safety of all pilots flying to and from Mactan Airport?

Back on the Aviatours case. It just amazes me why CAAP is just taking too long to get Aviatours up in the air again. I’m already hearing certain rumors that CAAP’s “friends” in the aviation school business want Aviatours out of business because they would benefit from getting all those more than a hundred foreigners studying in Cebu to become pilots. I hope this is just a rumor. But I’m the kind of person who believes in that old adage, “If there’s a smoke, there must be a fire.” Isn’t this a kind of corruption? Hmm.

Under the DOTC family, when we had the sea disasters brought by the sinking of the Doña Paz and Doña Marilyn, where countless lives were lost, the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) initially suspended the operations of Sulpicio Lines… but allowed them to operate again. The same thing is true in many bus disasters leading to many deaths in our highways. But the Aviatours Seneca II only had three fatalities… including Capt. Jessup Bahinting, Aviatours CEO. Surely, it is a price that Aviatours had paid.

Meanwhile we are losing on a great opportunity to train pilots worldwide. In last year’s Farnborough Airshow, Boeing officials said that the world would need 460,000 new pilots in the next 20-years. So let’s not lose this golden opportunity, especially here where we need at least 2,000 pilots.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.