Divide and rectify

The government has decided to trifurcate the responsibilities of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to make governance and functions easier, transparent and effective. However, it stopped short of completely reforming the body under a parallel organisation as it has opted to do for some others in the past. The CAA board has said it is creating three new wings to effectively oversee its main functions. To be headed by an additional director, the government approved the plan to set up regulatory, an airport and operations, and support divisions. The government and the CAA board hope this functional separation will help with the micro-level management of the authority and its functions. The two believe that through this restructuring, they will ensure intense focus on each function apart from enhancing regulatory control to help make the sector robust, safe and secure.

Over the past half a decade, the authority has undergone several such reforms. From just being headed by a director-general — appointed without public advert — who oversaw the three major wings of the body including regulation, air navigation and airport services, to being governed by a board in the last administration. The reorganisation of the authority has now continued under this administration as well. Before the decision to hire additional ADGs and DDGs for the reformed wings, the authority had failed to hire a permanent DG for over two years. When pushed by the government, a selection board trawled through some 600 applications and interviewed over a dozen candidates. Ultimately, it failed to find their ideal candidate. And just when recruitment for the post was to be shelved, a director-general was appointed. But the move was soon challenged in court.

The CAA has been in dire need of reforms for a while now. But beyond a comparative analysis of the new posts, there are few details available about the extent of the latest reforms. With Pakistani airlines and CAA’s performance questioned by much of the world, one hopes these reforms offer some solution to the authority’s problems.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2021.

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