FEMPPA Reiterates Request for Regulations for Non-Commercial Aviation (1998)

Monterrey, Nuevo León, November 19, 1998

Don Carlos Ruiz Sacristán
Secretary of Communications and Transportation

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We once again address you regarding the regulation of general aviation in Mexico. In response to our letter to you dated May 25, we received a very kind reply from Undersecretary Dychter, in which he told us that "the DGAC was instructed to review each and every one of the arguments presented by the Federation... which are analyzed and answered individually in the annex accompanying this official letter."

That annex turned out to be a document, probably drafted by people with no flying experience, that did not address the fundamental problems we have raised from the beginning. We made this known to Dr. Dychter in our letter of September 14, in which we cited, only as examples, two cases of inconsistency and reiterated, for the umpteenth time, our request that "the Secretariat submit the initiatives necessary to amend the Civil Aviation Law, which is currently unfair to non-commercial aviation, and draft regulations exclusively for non-commercial aviation based on the proposal prepared by FEMPPA at the request of the DGAC."

In response, we have now received official letter number 5846 from the DGAC, in which the Director General of Civil Aeronautics accepts that we are right in the first of the two examples we cited.

Regarding our letter, Director Bargés states: "after reading it, I am pleased that, through this exchange of information, criteria, and experience between that Federation and the corresponding areas of the SCT, the constructive collaboration and dialogue that characterize Mexican civil aviation are being fostered, having observed only the following point on which there is no agreement." He then cites the second example included in our letter, concerning flight instructors, and again provides a superficial answer, which we assume was once again drafted by people with no flying experience, without analyzing the underlying contradiction. He concludes by stating that flight instructors must be part of an educational institution because they need to have "demonstrated before the aeronautical authority the privileges they hold to provide the corresponding technical instruction." We believe that requirement was satisfied when the aeronautical authority issued a pilot a license to serve as a flight instructor. Why insist on bureaucratic duplication that, in practice, complicates, slows down, and corrupts the training of private pilots, who frequently must receive instruction from whoever is able to provide it in the locality where they live and later "arrange the paperwork" through a school?

On the other hand, based on the Director's statements regarding "the constructive collaboration and dialogue that characterize Mexican civil aviation" and "only one point on which there is no agreement," should we understand that the SCT has finally recognized that the Civil Aviation Law is unfair to general aviation and has decided to submit a legislative initiative to amend it, as well as to draft regulations exclusively for non-commercial aviation based on the proposal prepared by FEMPPA, as we requested in the letter to which he is responding?

Allow us to state once again, Mr. Secretary, our confidence in you to rescue general aviation in Mexico, which is going through one of the saddest moments in its history as Public Transportation is clearly being favored over general aviation, despite the fact that general aviation has ten times more aircraft and pilots and constitutes the foundation of national aviation. We trust in your objectivity to recognize the existing distortion and to order the necessary measures to correct it.

Awaiting your kind response, we send you the cordial greetings of the members of this Federation, which is also yours.

Sincerely,

Jorge Cornish Garduño
President