Safety alert: Thai International Airways maintenance discrepancies disclosed

Thai Airways International is the national carrier of the Kingdom of Thailand and a current member of Star Alliance.

Thai Airways International is the national carrier of the Kingdom of Thailand and a current member of Star Alliance. Many flights from Thai are also issued under codeshare agreement with airlines that include Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, ANA, Air China, Emirates and many other international airlines.

AvCon Worldwide Limited is a London based aviation consulting firm providing consultancy services for airline and the aviation industry. The comoany website stated: Veteran Industry experts teamed up together to offer the best service covering all the aspects of the industry.

Today AvCon released a media alert pointing out maintenance discrepancy data of one of Thai Airways Internationalโ€™s aircraft to ICAO, EASA, FAA and other selected civil aviation authorities on 29 April 2015. AvCon Worldwide Limited was involved in A340-500 purchase case in 2013 and inspected one of its aircraft.

In light of recent outcome of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation)โ€™s USOAP (Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme) on Thai Department of Civil Aviation, we have decided to release maintenance discrepancy data we found in 2013 for the interests of the public.

International Civvil Aviation Organization (ICAO) raised issue of shortage of inspectors at Thai Department of Civil Aviation along with other issues they found through the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP)on Thai Department of Civil Aviation. Shortage of inspectors at Thai Department of Civil Aviation may have attributed to maintenance discrepancies.

Two sample shots of data are provided as shown below.

ICAOโ€™s USOAP is applied to national civil aviation authorities, not to individual airlines. However lax maintenance may be caused by shortage of inspectors at Thai Department of Civil Aviation. Number of airlines registered in Thailand has gone up significantly in recent years but Thai Department of Civil Aviation does not have sufficient number of inspectors to cover such large number of air operators in Thailand and aircraft operated by them.

Thai1 | eTurboNews | eTN

Thai2 | eTurboNews | eTN

Detailed inspections and correcting records can be carried out during heavy maintenance therefore inspecting all the aircraft registered in Thailand would take years as jet airliners have periodic heavy maintenance schedules (i.e. 18 months for C check for Airbus aircraft or hour and cycle based C check for others).

About the author

Avatar of Linda Hohnholz

Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

Share to...