General Director - Peter Griffiths, Director External Relations - Zhanna Shek and Director Safety Risk Management - Yekaterina Popova of Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan attended ICAO-EASA joint pan – European NCMC meeting in Paris.Building on the successful experience of ICAO – EASA Joint pan-European National Continuous Monitoring Coordinator meeting (E-NCMC) held in May 2017, it was decided to continue this good practice of coordinated assistance to States in improving their level of effective implementation (EI) of the eight critical elements of the State safety oversight system.

The meeting focused on the priorities presented results of EASA Standardisation, ICAO update: global aspects, regional issues, Assembly outcome from a European perspective, experience sharing on USOAP activities, updated guidance and policy discussion and updated on EASA Corrective Action Plan.

Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan (AAK) is a newly formed organization that is responsible for technical and safety oversight of the aviation industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Enhancing collaboration between all ICAO and EASA member states is the crucial issue for future development of the Kazakh civil aviation system.Informal consultations between the Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan and the ICAO air transport global community representatives took place. The participants discussed the possible ways of interaction development between the two organizations. Mr. Griffiths met with Leyla Suleymanova, Technical Associate Safety European and North Atlantic Office, Paris (EUR/NAT) International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Mr. Griffiths gave some background on what Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan have been doing and what needs to be achieved.

“Over the last three months, setting up the AAK, I have been validating the findings of ICAO to see where we are in terms of corrective actions. Not much has changed and I believe we now have an accurate picture of what needs to be done here and how long it will take. I would then like to discuss in more detail additional support requirements to create the regulator we require for Kazakhstan along with training requirements and timings. From this meeting I expect to build as part of the Strategy the corrective action plan for the state”.

The ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP) calls for constant improvement of the effective implementation rate (EI) of ICAO safety related provisions. This is also set in the regional safety targets defined by the European Regional Aviation Safety Group (RASG EUR) responsible for the implementation of GASP at the regional level. Recently, Amendment I to Annex 19 has become effective clearly identifying the efficient State safety oversight system as an integral part of the State Safety Program that sets the foundation for a performance-based State safety oversight system. The role of the National Continuous Monitoring Coordinator (NCMC) in each ICAO contracting country is essential in driving the necessary improvements at the state level. However, sometimes achieving this role could be challenging, especially if acting alone. With this in mind, ICAO presents the existing practice in other regions where all NCMC’s meet and discuss implementation challenges, share experience and get updates from ICAO representatives on recent developments of the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Program (USOAP).