Lack of Protection for the Aviation Industry in Panama

While hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in Tocumen Airport, the Panamanian Civil Aviation Authority does not have the capacity to exercise its responsibility to carry out supervision.

Monday, December 12, 2016

The economy with the greatest air connectivity in the region does not have, according to the ICAO, the necessary resources to deal with an air crash, indicating that training for air traffic monitoring staff is insufficient.

In the last ten years the rating awarded by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to the Panamanian air monitoring system fell from 85 to 36.4, (where 0 is the minimum and 100 maximum) reflecting, according to ICAO criteria, deficiencies in aerial surveillance, training of technicians linked to air traffic monitoring and resolution of safety issues, among other things.

 See Safety Audit Information

Germinal Sarasqueta, Panama's ambassador to the Council of the ICAO, author of the safety oversight system which was set up by the AAC in the last decade, said that "... there is concern in the ICAO about the situation with the Panamanian system. 'In 10 years they destroyed all the effort made and money invested between 2001 and 2005, it is not possible that we are behind countries like Haiti in terms of operational monitoring'. ..He clarified that the lack of compliance is not on the part of airlines which have maintained their daily operational safety, but rather that the body called on to regulate the sector does not have the ability to do so."

In the view of Jorge Rodriguez, "... former director of the OACI during the Moscoso administration, who led the Panamanian team that was able to recoup the status in 2004 to category 1, the score obtained by Panama in the last ICAO inspection could motivate a visit by FAA officials. 'They should be worried, because if they want to, in one fell swoop they can demote us and that would be a blow to Copa Airlines because it would not be able to add new flights to the United States, and Tocumen, where it is investing more than a billion in its expansion'."


(Chart from ICAO website)

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June 2017

The airlines claim there is a need to improve air traffic management at Tocumen airport, because "it is useless to have a new terminal if the planes cannot land."

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