Aviation Safety Rating back to Category I

The aviation safety rating of Korea was restored to category I, 110 days after being downgraded to Category II. Lim In-Taik the Minister of Construction & Transportation announced on 6th , "U.S. Federal Aviation Administration officially informed the upgrade of Korea`s aviation safety rating to Class I." FAA had lowered ASR of Korea to the Category II on August 17th. By the restoration, Korea may now cast off the title `underdeveloped country in air safety` and Korean Airline and Asiana Airline are allowed to launch new routes in America, increase the amount of flights, change the type of aircrafts, and share hubs etc..

Since the FAA gave Korea `the preliminary Category II` rating in May this year, MCT has resolved the problems by revising the aviation regulations, hiring aviation experts, training aviation safety inspectors, etc. And it had final conference with the FAA on the matters of rank evaluation.

Korea Airline is going to resume the services to Guam and Saipan and share hub with Delta Air Lines. Asiana Airline too will restore the hub sharing with American Air Lines which was suspended last August, and change several types of air crafts that are used in the U.S. route.

According to the regulation by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and FAA to biannually check for the aviation safety monitoring system of each country, Korea is going to be examined by ICAO first half next year, by FAA second half 2003.

Koo Ja-Ryong c@donga.com