Proposed changes to Thailand’s aviation legal framework will prove more extensive than first thought, senior government officials have told AIN.

Initial proposals called for giving the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) the power to draw up ICAO-compliant secondary legislation. Now plans call for the repeal all existing legislation and replacing it with one act to bring in all-encompassing ICAO rules for all the different subsectors of the aviation industry in Thailand.

“We rewrote the whole legislation,” Chula Sukmanop, director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand, told AIN on Thursday.

The legislation will cover safety, security regulations, economic and environmental aspects, said Sukmanop. Economic elements would cover issues such as licensing and the pricing of services, he added.

The new legislation will totally comply with contemporary international norms. “This law is going to give us the tool to fully implement the 19 ICAO Annexes,” Sukmanop told AIN.

Officials consider sweeping away Thailand’s former laws, which suffered the burdens of strict national security criteria, as a way to set the foundation for Thailand as an aviation business hub.

The founding act was written 60 years ago, when “everything was deemed national security,” explained vice minister Kobsak Pootrakool.

One mild concern, though, centers on the amount of time it will take to get the proposed measures on to the statute book.

The legislation currently rests with the State Council, which will send it back to the Cabinet. If the Cabinet agrees to the Council’s changes the proposal will go to the National Assembly. “It will take some time...at least until the end of the year,” said Pootrakool.  “This is my conjecture.”