Source: ICAO Speaking  to the 8th Virtual Meeting of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Global Tourism Crisis Committee this week, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu acknowledged that the latest measures to confront the most recent waves of COVID-19 transmission are weighing heavily on global travel and tourism.   She emphasized that there were few signs of near-term relief ahead for travel and tourism markets, given that the world is still faced with limited supplies of vaccines, and insufficient data on the transmission of the virus by persons that have been vaccinated.   Dr. Liu underscored that ICAO is collaborating with States, partner agencies and industry on the global vaccine distribution challenge, and to develop further guidance applicable to [...]

Source: ICAO With its latest economic impact analysis of COVID-19 now completed, the UN agency for civil aviation has confirmed that international passenger traffic suffered a dramatic 60 per cent drop over 2020, bringing air travel totals back to 2003 levels. ICAO reports that as seat capacity fell by 50 per cent last year, passenger totals dropped by 60 per cent with just 1.8 billion passengers taking to the air during the first year of the pandemic, compared to 4.5 billion in 2019. Its numbers also point to airline financial losses of 370 billion dollars resulting from the COVID-19 impacts, with airports and air navigation services providers (ANSPs) losing a further 115 billion and 13 billion, respectively. The pandemic plunge [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu addressed the members of the Women in Aviation International’s India Chapter on 8 January 2021, providing introductory remarks to its virtual meeting on “Connecting the dots – Recovery for aviation, tourism and hospitality”.   The Secretary General’s comments focused mainly on the significant gender equality challenges still facing the air transport sector, and the opportunity to address current imbalances as the sector pivots and recovers from COVID-19.   “While it is becoming more common to see women in positions of power and prominence, in both the public and private sectors, we still remain under-represented in most professional, leadership, and decision-making categories,” Dr. Liu noted. “In the aviation sector more specifically, which is [...]

Source: IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA), Airports Council International Latin America and the Caribbean (ACI-LAC) and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), are jointly expressing their deep concerns about the new measures and restrictions imposed on air travel across Latin America and the Caribbean. In a call to governments they are asking for the implementation and adherence to internationally agreed measures which permit safe air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rolling back the progress made on restoring air connectivity in 2020 will have an adverse effect on the socio-economic recovery in the region, placing millions of jobs at risk. 2021 began as a promising and hopeful year with [...]

Source: U.S. Department of Justice The Boeing Company (Boeing) has entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to resolve a criminal charge related to a conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Evaluation Group (FAA AEG) in connection with the FAA AEG’s evaluation of Boeing’s 737 MAX airplane. Boeing, a U.S.-based multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells commercial airplanes to airlines worldwide, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed today in the Northern District of Texas. The criminal information charges the company with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Under the terms of the DPA, Boeing will pay a total criminal monetary amount of over $2.5 billion, [...]

Source: ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) welcomed the announcement this week on the easing of Gulf airspace restrictions.   “This resolution to the former Gulf airspace restrictions will help assure that the important socio-economic benefits of international air connectivity can be better optimized among all the countries concerned,” commented Council President Salvatore Sciacchitano.   “ICAO's role is to work with and among sovereign States to ensure more open skies globally, and continuously improving levels of aviation safety, security, and sustainability.”   ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu also welcomed the new developments from the Gulf, recalling that the ICAO Secretariat, through its Regional Office in Cairo, had rapidly established contingency routes to ensure the safety and regularity of [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu ended off the fourth annual ICAO Global Aviation Security Symposium (AVSEC2020)  by inaugurating 2021 as the Year of Security Culture. In her closing remarks to last week’s virtual event, which concluded on Friday and brought together over 1,500 global aviation security experts and officials, Dr. Liu noted that the over-arching goal with the Year of Security Culture initiative will be to raise security awareness in aviation operations and have the entire sector thinking and acting in a security-conscious manner. “Special and multi-agency events will be conducted, and supplemented by a series of global and regional activities focused on innovations in cybersecurity, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, air cargo, and pandemic recovery,” she emphasized. “From [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO made further progress on its global aviation pandemic response initiatives this week, as civil aviation regulatory heads from around the world took part in the latest round of recovery coordination meetings hosted virtually by the agency’s Regional Offices.   Speaking separately to all ICAO regions starting from 7 December until 18 December, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu updated the national air transport authorities on the latest ICAO CART Phase II COVID-19 recovery recommendations.   She also underscored that her remarks were set against a backdrop of revised ICAO forecasts for a 60% sector-wide traffic downturn for 2020, and stressed that overall sectoral resilience and recovery continue to strongly rely on how governments align their responses and [...]

Source: ICAO ICAO Council President Salvatore Sciacchitano and UK’s Minister for Aviation, Maritime & Security, Robert Courts MP recently exchanged views on the current state of the aviation sector in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both leaders expressed their shared commitment towards the industry’s recovery and ongoing efforts towards increased global mobility. President Sciacchitano also expressed his appreciation for the UK’s new COVID-19 testing strategy for international arrivals, highlighting to the Minister that the initiative is in line with the recommendations issued by the ICAO Council’s Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) concerning medical testing guidelines.