12 Maintenance Personnel per Aircraft?… Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to Remove 'Uniform Standards'

Korean Air passenger planes and others are parked at the Gimpo Airport apron in Gangseo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyeong aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Jiwon] The uniform standard requiring 12 maintenance personnel per aircraft will be abolished. Instead, the appropriate number of maintenance personnel will be calculated individually, considering factors such as the aircraft model and the annual number of flights.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) announced on the 8th that the partial amendment to the Aviation Safety Act containing these provisions is scheduled to be promulgated on the 9th.

According to the amendment, the government will verify the adequacy of maintenance personnel from the stage of new aircraft registration. Until now, when international and domestic air transport operators registered aircraft, only property rights such as ownership and lease rights were checked.

Regarding aircraft maintenance personnel, there was no clear standard other than the recommendation of "12 maintenance technicians per aircraft." Therefore, large airline subsidiaries such as Jin Air, Air Busan, and Air Seoul had issues such as maintaining fewer personnel than the recommended standard, citing that maintenance was outsourced to their parent companies.

To address these issues, MOLIT is preparing a "standard for calculating appropriate maintenance personnel" that considers the characteristics of each airline. The calculation standard requires detailed measurement of factors affecting maintenance workload, such as the types of aircraft owned by each airline and the annual number of flights. Accordingly, the uniform standard for the number of maintenance personnel per aircraft will be eliminated.

MOLIT explained, "From now on, various factors will be comprehensively evaluated to determine the necessary maintenance personnel for each airline before registering the aircraft," and "the amended regulation will apply to aircraft newly registered six months after the promulgation."

Additionally, MOLIT has assigned the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, which is responsible for issuing pilot certificates and safety education for ultralight flying devices (drones), to also handle device registration and deregistration tasks. This unification of drone registration and management under a single agency is expected to create a safer and more convenient drone operation environment.

MOLIT will also introduce a "deemed acceptance system" for registrations. If a civil petitioner files a report related to the operation or maintenance regulations of an air transport operator and does not receive notification of acceptance or extension of the processing period from the competent authority within the statutory processing period, the report will be deemed accepted.

This aims to prevent inconvenience and damage to civil petitioners caused by unjustified delays in acceptance by administrative agencies and will be implemented simultaneously with the promulgation.

MOLIT stated, "We will thoroughly supervise to ensure safe aircraft maintenance management," and "through simplification of ultralight flying device registration procedures and systematic management, we will contribute to improving civil convenience and revitalizing the aviation industry."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.