The cabinet on Tuesday approved three measures proposed by transport ministry to ease aviation safety concerns.
First, the dysfunctional Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) will be restructured.
Under the planned reorganisation, Transport Minister Prajin Juntong said the department would be split into two separate agencies. The National Civil Aviation Office will oversee the standards of airlines and their personnel, as well as grant air operator's certificates (AOCs) and air operating licences (AOLs).
The other unit, the Department of Airports, will run DCA’s 28 airports, mostly in the provinces.
The UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) flagged the Thai Civil Aviation Department for "significant safety concerns" (SSCs) following an earlier audit that resulted in a poor score. This led Japan, South Korea and China to restrict new flights by Thai airlines to their airports.
ACM Prajin said the cabinet also agreed with the setting up of a ministerial working panel to supervise the DCA's reorganisation and amend relevant laws, particularly the 1954 Air Navigation Act, to keep up with the ICAO's standards.
The third measure was to recruit 48 more positions in the DCA’s team to address a lack of manpower seen as one of their major problems. Thirteen personnel have been recruited by the agency recently.
“The restructuring must be completed early next month while proposed amendments to the [air navigation] law will be finished by the end of next month,” ACM Prajin said. “After that, we will forward them to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to consider using Section 44 to solve the problems quickly.”
Section 44 of the interim charter, which gives Gen Prayut sweeping powers, will be used to bypass bureaucratic red tape and speed up the remedial process, the prime minitser had said earlier.