The approval in the Senate of aviation reforms accelerates the return of Mexico to Category 1: SICT

After the rapid approval in the Senate of the reforms to the Civil Aviation and Airports laws, the return of Mexico to category 1 by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), of the United States is close.

The changes must be published in the next few hours in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) and with this the three missing “non-conformities” will be closed, reported the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) this Saturday.

However, there was no comment on a date on which this could happen.

The points that were pending, according to the dependency, are related to:

have laws to regulate and supervise the certification and continuous supervision of medical evaluations of aviation personnel, carry out regulatory investigations after each aviation accident and incident and give the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) legal and regulatory authority to issue medical certificates.

“Once the three pending ‘non-conformities’ have been resolved, the AFAC will request the FAA, through the corresponding diplomatic channels, to carry out the IASA audit. Once the IASA audit is completed, the FAA will issue a report on the results. If there are findings, they must be solved immediately by the AFAC” detailed the SICT as part of the path to follow.

Subsequently, the US agency, upon verifying full compliance with the findings detected by the aforementioned audit, will issue the final report through the corresponding diplomatic means, communicating the recovery of category 1 in aviation security to Mexico, which was lost in May. of 2021.

With the return to category 1, the airlines from Mexico will be able to increase their activity in the US market (routes and frequencies), since for the moment they are unable to do so.

In its Saturday statement, the SICT explained that AFAC promptly addressed the 39 “non-conformities” through the following actions:

• Proposals for modifications to the Aeronautical Legislation.
• Adoption of new amendments issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
• Updating the Electronic System for Notification of Differences (EFOD).
• Answer to the questions of the IASA audit of the FAA.
• Closure of the 39 “nonconformities” detected during the Technical Review.
• Compliance with AFAC Self-assessment activities.