The 10th Cooperative Development of Operational Safety and Continuing Air-worthiness Program – South East Asia (COSCAP-SEA) Steering Committee Meeting, organised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and hosted by the Civil Aviation Authority of Macau (AACM), began in Macau yesterday and will continue today.

For the purpose of enhancing flight safety, the aviation safety association known as COSCAP was set up in each sub-region under the umbrella of ICAO's Technical Cooperation Bureau to provide technical assistance on safety oversight to the civil aviation administrations in a sub-region.

The program is supervised by a steering committee comprising officials of the participating civil aviation administrations.

A meeting is held every year by the COSCAP-SEA Steering Committee to review the progress made towards achieving the program objectives and devise strategies to assist members in complying with the ICAO requirements.

Macau has taken part in the program since 2000.

To date, other members of the COSCAP-SEA comprise Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.

The opening ceremony held yesterday morning at the Macau Fisherman's Wharf was officiated by Secretary for Transport and Public Works of Macau, Lau Si Io.

The 10th meeting attracted more than 50 representatives from the member states and the ICAO to attend.

The Federal Aviation Administration, the Civil Aviation Authority of France, the Investigation Bureau for Civil Aviation of France (BEA-France), the European Aviation Safety Agency, Boeing and COSCAP-North Asia also participated in the meeting as industry partners.

In the second part of the meeting today, participants will continue to review the COSCAP-SEA program, discuss the current and forthcoming activities of the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Program as well as the update on the recent development concerning ICAO Safety Management System requirements and the implementation of the Global Aviation Safety Plan.

On the other hand, Chan Weng Hong, the president of the Macau Civil Aviation Authority, said yesterday that new regulations had been drafted which were to protect the interests of passengers when affected by delayed or cancelled flights.

He said the bill proposed a mandatory restriction that airline companies, when having flights delayed or cancelled as a result of weather or special conditions, were obligated to "basic responsibilities" including arranging customer services and compensation.

The authority chief also said that in the view of business, flights at the Macau International Airport were "not frequently delayed" which was "still within the international standards".