The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) has announced that Thai Airways International has been successfully recertified to the international safety standards of ICAO. The Thai flag carrier is the third of Thailand’s international airlines (after Bangkok Airlines and Thai AirAsia) to receive its AOC recertification as part of CAAT’s recertification programme, in partnership with CAA International (CAAi), the advisory arm of the UK Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA).

CAAi was appointed by CAAT in 2016 to provide full-scale technical assistance, and capacity building in the recertification of all Thai registered international airlines and to support CAAT ahead of its next ICAO audit.

An initial group of nine carriers are scheduled to be recertified by June 2017.

The procedure is part of a programme launched in the aftermath of ICAO’s announcement in 2015 of Significant Safety Concerns (SSCs) regarding the Thai aviation sector, followed by the FAA decision to downgrade the country’s safety rating from Category 1 to Category 2.

Thailand is expected to be audited by ICAO later this year to address the SSC finding. CAAi is working with CAAT to raise Thailand’s level of effective implementation across all of ICAO’s eight “critical elements”, with the initial focus on the SSC and related areas.