This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on January 17, 2022 - January 23, 2022

CAPTAIN Chester Voo Chee Soon, CEO of the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM), is a man in a hurry.

2022 will mark three years since the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded the technical regulator for failing to meet the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) safety standards. The downgrade to Category 2 was a first for Malaysia’s aviation safety regulator since it was assigned a Category 1 rating in 2003 — placing it alongside countries such as Thailand, Bangladesh, Curaçao, Costa Rica and Ghana.

Voo says CAAM is making every effort to restore its aviation safety rating to Category 1. “We are currently working towards the recategorisation by FAA, which is a process that will take a few months. We should know by the second quarter of this year [if we are successful],” he tells The Edge in an interview.

Voo took over the CEO post at CAAM in June 2020, when staffing levels, morale and productivity were at all-time lows. The Covid-19 pandemic had also rocked the global aviation industry. Overnight, almost all flights were grounded, with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) describing 2020 as the worst year in aviation history.

“This [staffing] was one of the key areas that we looked at immediately. The first thing was to make everyone feel safe and that nobody’s job was threatened,” says Voo.

“I also wanted employees to achieve what they could to their best ability by doing things faster and more organised, with an emphasis on being polite and good-mannered. It took some time, but things have been positive.”

It did not help that CAAM’s staff pay is tied to the government’s pay scale, as it is an agency under the Ministry of Transport (MoT), which makes attracting and retaining top talent a challenge. Voo says the remuneration package has been reviewed, and the benefits are sufficient for such a time at the height of the pandemic.

Last year, CAAM added 198 staff, including technical personnel, officers and administrative staff, taking the total employee strength to 1,406. It also promoted 185 staff internally.

“The number of applicants interested in joining CAAM has increased sixfold, and this has been encouraging for our human resources (HR) team. We are at full strength required to provide safety oversight and air traffic services for Malaysia,” says Voo.

While staff morale has come a long way over the past year, the work is not over. He has made it his mission to build a sense of family environment and loyalty within CAAM.

“Moving forward, I aim to leverage even more of our people’s skills and knowledge as we embark on the way we conduct our operations in even better detail, to provide true value and human touch for effective safety oversight and air traffic services. We still have time to continue building our competency and manpower numbers, as [IATA had forecast] a full recovery in air travel would likely take place only beyond 2024,” he says.

Voo has also been busy building systems to beef up trust and safety. “We have completely revised our regulatory documents. We have moved all of Malaysia’s documents into civil aviation directives (CADs),” he says.

“In 2021 alone, we issued 74 CADs. All of CAAM’s directives are now fully aligned with ICAO annexes.”

For the first time, CAAM has published guidance materials on how to comply with these CADs. “We also issued internal guidance materials for our own qualified technical personnel so that within CAAM, we are standardised. We won’t have different inspectors saying different things. They follow the same guidance of compliance,” says Voo.

Voo says he is “cautiously confident” about the aviation industry. “We do expect the industry to be better than 2020 and 2021, although the capacity may not attain the levels of pre-pandemic.”

He also praised Malaysia-based airlines for complying with the Covid-19 new norms or procedures, such as contact tracing and sanitising, as well as managing their operating crew’s mental health and handling skills despite the lack of flying in the last two years.

In 2021, CAAM granted 28 air operator’s certificates (AOCs), nine approved training organisations for flight training organisations, 74 approved maintenance organisations and 18 maintenance training organisations.

“Year on year, this reflected normal growth as the industry prepares for post-pandemic capacity. Last year, we issued 10 approvals for AOC renewals with one new airline — SKS Airways Sdn Bhd,” says Voo.

Starting a new airline during a pandemic may be a bit of a wild card, but he says the regulator has received three applicants for AOC so far this year. “They are now in the technical process.”

Previously, Malaysia Airlines Bhd’s shareholder Khazanah Nasional Bhd had warned that an overcapacity of airlines and flights based in the country is the main reason why the national carrier is struggling to make money.

To this, Voo says, “It depends on the AOC holder and what market segment it is entering. Is it entering a market segment where it flies trunk or premier routes? Or is it serving lesser flown markets or new destinations?

“If a start-up is to fly into airports that are not generally flown in or have low capacity, it could generate commercial interest. But if you are talking about a new airline wanting to fly the standard Kuala Lumpur-Kota Kinabalu or KL-Singapore route, maybe there would be competition. Healthy competition is always good as this pushes the operator to be more efficient, and the consumers will benefit as well from competitive prices.

“CAAM’s role is purely as a safety and security regulator. So, if [an airline] wants to operate more routes, additional planes or stations, we will ensure that their facility, equipment and crew comply with safety and security requirements.

“For economic considerations, this comes under the Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom). Mavcom will grant it either an air service licence (ASL) or an air service permit, which decides whether the airline operator is a scheduled carrier or a non-scheduled carrier. As an economic regulator, Mavcom will manage financial sustainability and market requirements.”

SKS Airways — which is wholly-owned by Johor-based SKS Group, founded by low-profile businessman Alan Sim See Kiong — received a three-year ASL from Mavcom this month and is aiming to launch its first flight from Subang to Pangkor on Jan 25. It operates a fleet of DHC6 Twin Otter turboprop aircraft.

Meanwhile, the timeline to merge Mavcom with CAAM in the second half of 2021 came and went with no new date being decided upon. The two regulators declined to comment, but it is understood that MoT is putting the plan on the backburner for now.

The drone industry has grown significantly over the last three years. On its part, CAAM sought to provide a legal and regulatory framework to the local drone industry last year by issuing three CADs that focus on drone operations, namely CAD 6011 Part (I) for remote pilot training organisations (RPTO), CAD 6011 Part (II) for agricultural unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operations and CAD 6011 Part (V) for special UAS projects.

“For the drone industry to move forward, the industry needs to start comprehensive training in order to certify drone pilots. Previously, we provided special approvals based on the risk assessment and an approved emergency response plan, and the drone pilots may hold foreign licences or different kinds of certifications to operate drones,” says Voo.

“More recently, CAAM has issued approvals for two approved training organisations for remote pilot training organisations (ATO-RPTOs) in Malaysia, to UAV Academy of Asia Sdn Bhd and AirAsia Group Bhd. With this, we want all civilian drone operators or pilots to go through formal training at these CAAM-approved drone training academies and get the required drone certification.”

CAAM is expecting another four to five ATO-RPTOs to be approved this year.

Voo says in coming up with the laws involving flying drones, CAAM looked at the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s best practices and enhanced them to suit Malaysian operations.

“When it comes to more complex operations like using drones to deliver packages, we provide a sandbox environment for drone operators to test [their delivery platform] within a limited safe operating zone. We will then collect data on how the pilots manage a drone carrying an item in order to address safety concerns,” he adds.

“It requires training, certification and a lot of experience before it transits formally into carriage of items. Also, the operator needs to have governance and security management on what is being loaded and carried. For example, how does a member of the public pick up a package being delivered using a drone?

“We cannot have drones carrying heavy equipment flying over people. There are still many gaps that need to be answered and fixed properly.”

While 2021 was a year of “massive transformation” for CAAM, the regulator will focus on implementation and HR priorities this year, says Voo.

“We have launched an online appointment booking platform called e-temujanji as part of our efforts to provide faster and quicker response to industry requests. We are also looking forward to launching our e-licensing platform for online licence renewal of flight crew, engineers and air traffic controllers. This will cut queuing duration, reduce the administrative processes and enable us to have real-time data and the ability to use this data for enhanced oversight and compliance,” he adds.

With the modern facilities at the new Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control Centre in Sepang, CAAM plans to introduce a shortened standard terminal arrival and departure procedure for all commercial aircraft operating out of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in March or April. “This will significantly shorten the track miles of flight arrivals or departures, which in turn will help airlines save millions of ringgit in fuel burn,” says Voo.

This year, CAAM will also improve its client charter by reducing waiting and delivery time for approvals to the industry by 25%. “For example, if an operator submits a full set of approval documents for AOC, we are committed to 90 days delivery time in 2022, from 120 days last year. We can do this because we have sufficient manpower and we have improved our internal processes,” he says.

“I want to elevate HR to a core function in our organisation — to provide the best services for our internal staff through effective HR, who in turn will serve the people externally.”

Nevertheless, Voo states that he is not working against a timeline. “I am not deliberately pushing my people and myself to achieve [all these goals]. I really want CAAM to be better.

“The last few years have been challenging for the aviation industry. I am fortunate that the foundation of CAAM and its legislation, which was established before I came in, was robust enough to enable us to adapt to a rapidly changing industry. Covid-19 has certainly brought numerous challenges and changed many things in today’s world, and the same goes for the aviation industry.”

Voo attributes the strong support given to his management by MoT and the authority members of CAAM for its transformation. “I would say that while the pandemic hit our airline industry very hard, we turned that adversity into an opportunity to strengthen and improve ourselves. We are positive we are moving in the right step forward and heading in the right direction.”

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