Pakistan Civil Aviation Aurhrity is formally divided into two divisions. This was announced by the federal minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan after a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan was held to formalise this process. CAA will now have a division that will consist of the regulatory body and the other division will be Airport Services Pakistan (ASP). The regulatory body will be moved to Cabinet Division while Airport services Pakistan will remain under Aviation Division. ASP will be a fully functional company registered with Securities and Exchange Division of Pakistan.
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Earlier in April 2019 Secretary Aviation and Director General Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Shahrukh Nusrat announced this and said that “the regulatory function of CAA is being separated from its service provider function”. So this newly formed ASP company will own all the 43 airports in Pakistan. It will be run on a comercial basis and at a later stage shareholder will be invited to invest in a subsidiary company. This subsidiary company will work on three main gateways, Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. If this doesn’t work then these three airports will be outsourced after pen tenders are invited. And in case both models fail to materialise then the company can go into a joint venture. And last but not the least if nothing works it will be run on its own the way it will start.
By 9 August the management committee will be changed and new rules of business will be introduced. A legal review will be conducted and by 30 September 2019 financial separation and mid-process and stakeholders review will be conducted. By 31 December work will be done on IT and Human Resource sector and after that in September ICAO audit will take place.
This step is taken under National Aviation Policy 2019 and to bring Pakistan in line with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards as well as provide better services to passengers in Pakistan. The International Civil Aviation Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It codifies the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth.