ICAO rejects Spicejet’s audit story

Days after the budget airline SpiceJet claimed that its safety processes were found to be strong during an exhaustive audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the UN’s civil aviation agency clarified that visits to operators are not audits.”ICAO’s Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) team performed an ICAO Coordinated Validation Mission (ICVM) to India from 9 to 16 November 2022. The objective of an ICVM is to validate progress in addressing the findings from previous USOAP activities,” said William Raillant-Clark, Communications Officer, ICAO in a tweet on December 13.”As part of an ICVM, ICAO teams conduct industry visits to verify the effectiveness of the civil aviation authority’s safety oversight. This will include visits to multiple operators. ICAO wishes to clarify that visits to operators are not audits or inspections at all,” he added.ICAO also commented on its twitter handle saying, “Clarifications from ICAO’s Communications Officer related to a recent ICAO Coordinated Validation Mission to India.”Earlier, in its press release on December 5, Spicejet claimed, “SpiceJet was the only scheduled Indian airline part of the audit conducted by ICAO under Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) Continuous Monitoring Approach. The audit of SpiceJet safety systems helped India achieve its highest ever safety ranking in ICAO audit.”