This website has been created by independent Zambian air operators, in conjunction with the government and industry experts to provide comprehensive, up to date information regarding safe-flying in Zambia.
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Kamili
In July this year, Zambia was put on an “aviation blacklist" by the EU. This was the result of ICAO, the International Civil Aviation, which posted “significant safety concern” in their 2009 audit of Zambian civil aviation.
ICAO is a body affiliated to the UN which enforces international safety standards for civil aviation – to which most of the world’s states subscribe. For example, one of ICAO’s standards is that countries issue their airlines with an Air Operators Certificate (AOC). The requirements for this AOC are largely the same throughout the world. This is the licence issued to an airline or “air operator” by its national safety regulator, confirming that the airline is safe and authorised to operate.
Up until this year, Zambia issued an Air Service Permit (ASP) authorising public airlines to operate; this permit had the same function as an AOC. However, the procedures laid down by Zambian law to obtain an ASP were not as comprehensive as the ICAO standards for AOC. On top of that, ASPs were issued by the Zambian Ministry of Transport; ICAO deemed that this process could be open to political influence.
ICAO had conducted audits of Zambian Civil Aviation in 1999 and 2004, and during both of these audits ICAO raised concerns because Zambia had not yet enacted a law that would allow the issuing of an AOC, nor adopted the ICAO-endorsed Model Aviation Regulations (MCARS). Thus, when ICAO returned to Zambia in 2009 they raised this as a “significant safety concern” in their findings, and their report was made available to the EU.
When Zambia issued its first AOC on 29 May 2009, ICAO and the EU were notified. ICAO said that at the time of issue of the AOC, Zambia had not completed training of its newly issued procedures and regulations. It is this that resulted in the EU putting Zambia on its “aviation blacklist, affecting all Zambian carriers.
However, it is important to understand that this has not come about because any Zambian airline or air operator has been found to be unsafe. It has come about because of ICAO’s lack of confidence in the current level of training of the Zambian inspectors and in Zambia’s regulatory framework and its implementation.
