Air India (AI, Delhi International) and Jet Airways (JAI, Mumbai International) are now free to increase their respective services to the United States after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reinstated India's Category 1 rating under its International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) program.
“U.S. and Indian aviation officials have an important, cooperative working relationship,” US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said. “The United States Government commends the Government of India for taking corrective action to address the safety oversight issues identified during the IASA process.”
A Category 1 rating signifies that India's civil aviation oversight body, the Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) is in compliance with ICAO minima and permits Indian carriers to operate flights to the United States using their own aircraft and to codeshare with US carriers.
The FAA downgraded India to Category II in January last year citing inadequate training among DGCA inspectors as well as a shortage of full-time Flight Operations Inspectors. In the wake of the downgrade, the DGCA set about resolving the outstanding issues in time for an FAA audit in December last year.
