The Public Consultation n. 7/2020 (“Consultation”), which is being conducted by ANAC, in accordance with the procedures established by the legislation in force, has the purpose of discussing the publication of a resolution bringing amendments to the Brazilian Civil Aviation Regulation (“RBAC”) n. 121, entitled “Operational requirements: domestic, flag and supplementary operations”.
The issues addressed were object of a study carried out by the Operational Standards Superintendence (“SPO”) in the scope of the 5th Deliberative Meeting in which it was found the need to amend the RBAC in order to remove the mention of the Aeronautics Command, or the agencies it approved, as a provider of meteorological information. Three sections were identified with the respective mention, being: 121.101, 121.119 and 121.561.
The competence to provide meteorological information, in the national territory, already belongs to the Aeronautics Command, according to the legislation pointed out by the Airspace Control Department (“DECEA”). Thus, different from the understanding that can be extracted from RBAC n. 121, ANAC does not assign or delegate activity to DECEA, since the competence already belongs to it. Therefore, since ANAC cannot assign such activity to any body, once it is already done by the competent legislation, the text of the mentioned sections acquires a merely informative nature.
For operations outside the national territory, the provision of such information is the responsibility of the meteorological authority of each state. Thus, when the RBAC text foresees the Aeronautical Command or an agency approved by it for operations, it creates a gap in foreign operations.
Thus, the removal of the above mentions will bring uniformity to the situations described in operations in the national territory and abroad, as well as standardization with respect to other parts in which meteorological information is mentioned, and will make clearer the origin of the competence to DECEA/Aeronautics Command.
It should be noted that, although the proposal brings amendments to the original text of RBAC n. 121, there will be no practical changes in the situations presented.
It is important to note that the text proposed by ANAC for the adjusted clauses are available on the Agency’s website(https://www.anac.gov.br/participacao-social/consultas-publicas/consultas-publicas-em-andamento/consulta-publica) and that those interested in submitting a response to the Consultation, should send ANAC their manifestations by May 15, 2020.
It is worth noting, finally, that once the Consultation is closed, the final text of the Resolution, after being duly approved and published in accordance with the procedures established by the applicable legislation, should come into force on the date of its publication (as per the text proposed in the Consultation).
For easy visualization, below we have prepared a comparative table of the changes to RBAC n. 121.
DDSA’s Aviation Law team will continue to monitor the progress of Public Consultation 7/2020 and will continue to update our clients and partners on this issue.