Source: IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA) welcomes the announcement by Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez to reopen 15 airports in September, including Bogota. This is an important step for the necessary restart of aviation in the country. "Air transport is an essential public service that people need for different reasons, such as work, health, family or leisure purposes. Aviation’s prospect to restart is good news which will allow for the resuming of mobility and integration of the country. With this decision, the sector and its extensive value chain, which includes tourism and commerce in Colombia, can begin to rebuild. While this is the first step towards a total reopening, we call on the government to continue the open [...]

Source: ICAO The implementation of globally harmonized recommendations developed by the ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce (CART) took a step forward this week through the launch of supporting initiatives for airlines and airports by IATA and ACI, respectively. IATA has launched a checklist that aims to support airlines who want to implement the ICAO CART guidelines through self-assessments, while ACI has launched its “Airport Health Accreditation programme,” which assesses airports’ health measures and procedures against the CART recommendations. Both initiatives have been officially supported by ICAO. Developed in cooperation with the WHO, the CART recommendations provide wide-ranging recommendations to States and industry stakeholders and are underpinning the coordinated and safe re-opening of commercial air services. The implementation of “Public Health [...]

Source: IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released an updated global passenger forecast showing that the recovery in traffic has been slower than had been expected.         In the base case scenario: Global passenger traffic (revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) will not return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2024, a year later than previously projected. The recovery in short haul travel is still expected to happen faster than for long haul travel. As a result, passenger numbers will recover faster than traffic measured in RPKs. Recovery to pre-COVID-19 levels, however, will also slide by a year from 2022 to 2023. For 2020, global passenger numbers (enplanements) are expected to decline by 55% compared to 2019, worsened from [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO began the global roll-out of a civil aviation recovery Global Implementation Roadmap (GIR) today, providing an important enabling framework for countries as they begin to apply the COVID-19 pandemic restart and recovery measures in the ICAO Council’s Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) recommendations and annexed ‘Take-off’’ guidance document.   The UN specialized agency for civil aviation began conducting a series of GIR preview webinars this week with Directors General of Civil Aviation (DGCAs) from all world regions, explaining its priorities and describing the important monitoring and reporting platform, and ‘Implementation Packages’ (iPack) resources, which ICAO has established to support it.   In addressing the DGCAs from Africa, the Americas, and the North Atlantic and Europe during three [...]

Source: ICAO In accordance with the recommendations of the ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce, together ICAO Global Aviation Training (GAT) and CAA International (CAAi), the aviation training arm of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, have launched new training to enable the safe and secure restart of air operations.   Delivered in a virtual classroom by ICAO and UK CAA subject matter experts, the course will provide best practice advice to help regulators and air operators navigate oversight, compliance, training and operational challenges during the recovery period of COVID-19.   "Across the industry, aviation training will be essential to ensure professionals have the ability to navigate and manage the complex and dynamic compliance and operational challenges during the recovery period of [...]

Source: ACI Airports Council International (ACI) World has today published its World Airport Traffic Report Dataset covering passenger traffic, cargo volumes, and aircraft movements for the full year 2019. The dataset provides an illustration of a healthy aviation industry in 2019. In 2019, the world’s airports accommodated 9.1 billion passengers, 120 million metric tonnes of cargo, and more than 102 million aircraft movements. This year’s WATR dataset contains the most comprehensive data coverage ever collected by ACI World. It includes coverage of 2,565 airports in 180 countries worldwide. “The airports industry was experiencing a period of sustained passenger traffic growth in 2019 but, despite this consistent growth, we are now facing the worst crisis the industry has ever confronted, with [...]

Source: ICAO United Nations efforts to prevent trafficking in persons took an important step forward today, with the launch of the new online training to support the implementation of the ICAO-OHCHR Guidelines for Training Cabin Crew on Identifying and Responding to Trafficking in Persons   Developed in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the free e-learning course explores the unique opportunities cabin crew have to observe passengers over the duration of their flights and potentially identify and assist human trafficking victims. Additional course elements will also be of value to airport and other aviation industry professionals.   “The entire global aviation community has a key role to play in preventing trafficking [...]

Source: ICAO Singapore and the United Kingdom (UK) are commencing a series of trials to test the crew module of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council Aviation Recovery Taskforce (CART)  Take-off guidelines . These guidelines aim to reduce public health risk to air passengers, air crew, airport staff while strengthening confidence among the travelling public.   ICAO, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority, Changi Airport, Heathrow Airport, British Airways and Singapore Airlines are participating in these trials. The trials will test the measures for air crew throughout the travel journey between Singapore and the UK. The measures include maintaining safe distancing, meeting all relevant customs, immigration and health requirements, observing good hand hygiene and [...]

Source: ICAO A detailed set of international Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) to assist States in establishing their capabilities to collect, use, process and protect Passenger Name Record (PNR) data to help detect and counter terrorist offenses and mobility was endorsed recently by the ICAO governing body. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2396 prescribed that countries should develop the capability to collect, process and analyse, in furtherance of ICAO SARPs, airline PNR data for the purpose of countering, detecting and investigating terrorist offenses and related travel. The resolution also “urges ICAO to work with its Member States to establish a standard for the collection, use, processing and protection of PNR data.” “The exchange of PNR data helps to prevent [...]