The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia is confident of regaining Category 1 under the US Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ranking for air safety within two years.

"We are confident that we can resolve the outstanding matters raised by the FAA within 12 to 24 months," its board member Afzal Abdul Rahim said in Putrajaya today.

The aviation authority had said that the FAA downgraded Malaysia's air safety rating due to its shortcomings as an aviation regulator after an FAA review was carried out in April this year.

Malaysia has held a Category 1 rating since 2003.

Afzal admitted there were shortcomings but improvements and changes in structure and operations will be made.

The agency answered 300 questions during the FAA's review of its aviation oversight system, he said, adding the FAA raised 33 outstanding issues that the agency needed to address.

Afzal asserted that the FAA downgrade was only on their role as an aviation regulator and this had no effect on airlines, airports or air traffic services under its purview.

The only Malaysian airline route to the US is serviced by AirAsia X Bhd from Kuala Lumpur to Honolulu via Osaka.

"Existing flights can go on but they could not add new capacity, frequencies and new destinations until we get back to Category 1 status," he said.

Asked whether the downgrade would affect code-sharing involving Malaysian airlines, Afzal said they were waiting for further clarification on codeshare arrangements.

Asked why Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was not aware of the downgrade, he said the agency was under the Transport Ministry so the onus would be on the ministry to inform the cabinet and the prime minister. 

- Bernama