26 Sep 2005

Pacific Aviation Safety Office to enter operational phase

7:27 pm on 26 September 2005

The Pacific Aviation Safety Office, or PASO, says it expects to be operational soon after the Asian Development Bank gave it a loan.

The ADB last week approved a loan and technical assistance package totaling nearly two million US dollars, to complete the setting up of PASO.

PASO is a regional agency that will provide aviation safety, security oversight, and other aviation services throughout the region.

PASO's recently appointed CEO, Captain Desmond Ross, says the agency will soon have inspectors moving around the region, monitoring the application of the aviation rules.

"We've really been in a setting-up phase. Now we start to go to an operational phase, and the next step is that we'll be hiring the inspectors that we need to do the work. Our sincere hope is that we'll be operational and able to start doing an effective job in the first quarter of 2006."

PASO's CEO, Captain Desmond Ross.