Kathmandu, August 25

Rajan Pokhrel, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), said that the recently concluded 56th Director Generals of Civil Aviation (DGCA) conference has contributed to convey a message that Nepal’s aviation sector has improved in the recent years and is safe.

While providing a review of the conference today, Pokhrel said the CAAN had shed light on the improving aviation sector of the country during the meeting with international delegates on the sidelines of the main event.

“During the presentation and side-meetings, we got a chance to talk about improvements in the country’s aviation sector,” he said. “Moreover, the informal visits of the international delegates to out of valley areas on our domestic flight services also supported to prove that we are improving.”

CAAN had also held a side-meeting with European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), during which the authority informed the agency about the progress made

by Nepal in safety as well as urged that the country be removed from EU air safety list. “We informed that it is unjustifiable for Nepal to be kept on the EU’s air safety list despite all the improvements in the aviation sector.”

He further added that EU has two major concerns for putting Nepal on its air safety list.“First is the organisational reforms and improvements. For this, we have already started the procedures and are now working on dividing CAAN into two bodies — one looking into regulation issues and the other dealing with operational matters,” he said.

The second concern, as per Pokhrel, is the helicopter accident rate, especially the fatality rate.

“Nepal is a mountainous country and we have to operate choppers at high altitudes for rescue and relief operations. And it is while serving in high altitude areas that most of our chopper accidents have taken place,” he said. “The EU has made an issue out of this situation to place Nepal on its safety list.”

He argued that Nepali choppers rescue more than 300 Europeans in a year, and so Nepal should be lifted from the EU’s safety list.

The 56th DGCA conference was organised from August 19 to 23. This was the third time that Nepal had hosted the event, which was held under the theme of ‘Harmonising Efforts to Meet the Challenges of Capacity Constraints’ and participated by around 400 delegates.

President of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Olumuyiwa Bernard Aliu; Regional Director of Asia-Pacific region of ICAO, Arun Mishra and director generals of civil aviation of 43 countries along with European Union, the United States, United Kingdom and France had participated in the event.