Efforts under way for GAIA to achieve Category One status

 

Concerted efforts are being made to ensure that the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) can attain Category One status with the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
 
Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport, spoke to this while leading off the debate on the Civil Aviation (Amendment) Bill in the Upper House yesterday morning. The Parliamentary Secretary said that the Ministry has hired a consultant, who is looking at all the issues facing the aviation industry in Barbados, including the challenges confronting the various arms of the Civil Aviation Department. Additionally, she said that the department is working hard to reach and maintain the various international safety oversight standards that are required to achieve the Category One status.
 
“This gentleman, a former pilot, has taken those issues in hand and we now have monthly reports on the conditions; have monthly status reports to find out where we are with certain things, how far we’re getting with them, what has started, what has been completed; and we are monitoring at a very micro level, the situation in that Air Traffic Control Tower, so we do not have a recurrence of what would have happened over the past couple of years. The matter of the work stoppages was due to frustration; the staff did not feel that their issues were being addressed adequately and they felt that they were suffering for far too long,” she said.
 
With that in mind, she said the relevant authorities were able to sit down with the staff and their union, and through those discussions, she stated, those parties are now convinced that Government has taken their issues seriously and that they are being wrestled to the ground once and for all.
 
Sandiford-Garner’s comments came as she acknowledged that there is a critical shortage of staff in the Civil Aviation Department, which she said has presented challenges in terms of the department meeting its day-to-day duties and obligations. She said the air traffic control services and the regulatory section are particularly short-staffed. Nevertheless, she commended the department for continuing to function efficiently in spite of these shortages.
 
“The Barbados Civil Aviation Training Centre does not have the resources, human resources, to provide the training for the new air traffic control recruits in the numbers required. We would wish to have a greater volume of recruits, [but] we can only train what the facility can accommodate. So we are now looking at a cost-effective restructuring programme, so that we can provide refresher courses on a more frequent basis and offer different types of training,” she said.
 
To that end, the Parliamentary Secretary also disclosed that the restructuring programme that looks at the daily operations of the department has been completed and is currently before the Ministry of Civil Service for further action. This, she said, is in addition to the comprehensive restructuring White Paper, which was completed in 2012. Sandiford-Garner indicated that document, which is expected to address the current challenges facing the department, is now with the parent ministry. (JRT)

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