The country has been consequently downgraded to a Category 2 rating in the US, which means that it “either lacks laws or regulations necessary to oversee air carriers in accordance with minimum international standards,” the FAA website states, “or its civil aviation authority – a body equivalent to the FAA for aviation safety matters – is deficient in one or more areas, such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record-keeping, or inspection procedures.”
In March, Thai airlines were placed under “special measures” by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) prompting Japan and South Korea to block new flights from Thai-registered airlines.
This forced airlines, including budget carriers Thai AirAsia X, NokScoot and Asia Atlantic Airline, to cancel extra flights that they had been planning. Thai Airways, the national carrier, was also affected, which had to cancel “about five” new charter flights that were due to run in April, which is when Thailand’s new year – known as Songkran – is celebrated.
A representative told Telegraph Travel that the audit revealed some safety concerns, primarily relating to air operator certification procedures. Thailand provided the ICAO with the details of its corrective actions and mitigation measures in early March.
A spokesman for the ICAO said today that it is presently working with Thailand “to help rectify some aspects of how it’s civil aviation authority oversees the implementation of international aviation safety standards.”
The EU does not ban any Thai airlines at the moment but the next update will be published around mid-December. A spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency said: “We inspected in October the Thai airlines which applied for a Third Country Operators (TCO) authorisation – authorisation that any non-European Union airline willing to fly to and out of the EU must get. They were OK.”
The FAA has previously downgraded the Philippines to a Category 2 rating while also imposing a complete flight ban on its airlines, with the EU later following its example in 2010. This was relaxed in 2013, with the country finally removed from the EU’s airline blacklist in June this year.
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The FAA also banned Indonesia’s airlines for several years. It scored poorly on an ICAO safety audit in 2014. There are currently 59 of 63 Indonesian airlines banned from EU airspace, though this does not include the popular Garuda Indonesia and Indonesia Air Asia.
