Somalia’s civil aviation authority will recognise two IATA safety-audit programmes under an agreement signed in Mogadishu on October 18. IATA said the memorandum with the transport ministry and the Somali Civil Aviation Authority would support common international standards while complementing the regulator’s own oversight.
The agreement covers the IATA Operational Safety Audit, known as IOSA, and the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations, or ISAGO. The authority will accept those audits as means of demonstrating compliance with national regulations. The programmes concern airlines’ operations and the ground services that support aircraft, passengers and cargo.
IATA regional vice-president Kamil Alawadhi signed alongside Transport Minister Mohamed Farah Nuh and aviation authority director-general Ahmed Moallim Hassan. The association placed the agreement within its Focus Africa initiative, which includes aviation safety among its priorities.
The signing coincided with the restoration of IATA’s Billing and Settlement Plan in Somalia, launched at an event attended by Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre. That system concerns reporting and payments between travel agents and airlines. The safety agreement addresses a separate regulatory task, bringing recognised audits into the authority’s supervision of aviation operations.