By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 15 October 2014:
The Libya Civil Aviation Authority may be about to reject an instruction to move its . . .[restrict]administration from Tripoli to Beida. If it fails to make the move, it is possible that international air traffic control could ban flights into Libya.
The government has ordered the LCAA to relocate to Beida where the government is now based, from the capital, where ministerial websites as well as the ministries themselves have been taken over by the rival National Salvation government.
A senior source at the LCAA today told the Libya Herald that the authority had heard about the instruction to move, but had received no formal request to do so. Until that arrived, normal operations would continue in Tripoli. The impression given was that as and when the formal notice arrived, there might be no rapid response, if indeed it was not ignored completely.
Since the destruction of Tripoli International airport, Libyan air traffic control is effectively no longer functioning except in the immediate vicinity of airports. Few foreign airlines are now coming to Libya. Domestic carriers, Afriqiyah, Libyan Airlines and Buraq are operating fitful overseas services.
Libyan airspace is effectively run out of Malta ostensibly on behalf of the Libyan CAA and the European ATC, Eurocontrol. If the Libyan CAA threw in its lot with the unrecognised Hassi government in Tripoli, it might impact on its ability to represent Libyan aviation.
With no obvious replacement in a highly specialist field, insurance premiums for aircraft, already steep, could become unsustainable. The lack of a recognised CAA might even lead to a ban on all international flights.
Editor’s note: This story has been changed. We originally reported that the relocation instruction came from the House of Representatives, when the order in fact came from the Thinni government. [/restrict]
