Improving the industry

Roberto Kobeh González, President of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, outlines the prospects and issues of global civil aviation.

While tackling challenges has been the focus of our ongoing efforts to strengthen all aspects of air transport operations, recent events have shifted our focus on dealing with more immediate issues. For example in 2007, the airline industry recorded its first profit since 2000, as a result of a 19% improvement in fuel efficiency and an 18% reduction in non-fuel costs. The future looked promising.

Then came the global financial crisis and higher fuel prices, pushing the industry back into the red. Many airlines have taken steps to counter the rapid increase in oil prices, reducing the workforce and contemplating mergers. Fortunately, fuel prices have begun to ease, but volatility in the marketplace and uncertainty around the health of the global economy make it difficult to predict what will happen.

However, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has formulated a medium-term forecast that points to an industry recovery in 2010. Financially airlines of ICAO member states post an operating loss for 2008 and profits in 2009 and 2010. In relation to passenger traffic, growth will be lower than anticipated in earlier forecasts but recover in 2010. This outlook reaffirms the often-proven resilience of the air transport industry and the fact that our overall challenges will be growth – how to ensure the continued integrity of aviation management as we resume traditional rates of growth beginning in 2010.

Safety

For the ICAO, finding new and innovative ways to further improve safety will remain our first priority. As the operational and regulatory context evolves, we will pursue a more comprehensive approach, which takes into account economic, social and geopolitical realities. It is a results and performance-driven strategy. We will tackle safety issues in an integrated fashion, going to the root of the problem and investing precious time and money where they are most effective in coming up with concrete and lasting results.

Our overall strategy is contained in the ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP). The GASP is a global strategy for aviation safety and provides a common frame of reference for all stakeholders, both government and industry. The GASP reflects an extraordinarily high level of co-operation with all major stakeholders, by incorporating the Global Aviation Safety Roadmap developed by the air transport industry, in co-operation with ICAO. The GASP, in conjunction with the Safety Roadmap, can guide national or regional safety teams on the implementation of best safety practices as well as a process to assess their current status at a national or regional level and identify gaps that need to be addressed. It is a performance-based approach that focuses energies and resources on activities that provide the highest return for increasing safety.

Security

Aviation security is another dimension of safety. Unlike safety, however, it is more difficult to manage. Persons can commit acts of unlawful interference anytime, anywhere, and for any reason. Governments have the difficult and unenviable task of balancing the need for maintaining and encouraging anti-terrorist vigilance, while putting in place workable security measures that do not compromise the efficiency of the air transport sector. The delicate nature of this exercise is compounded by the fact that considerable economic damage can occur even when terrorist plans are foiled.

ICAO’s Aviation Security Plan of Action adopted in February 2002, in wake of the events of 9/11, provides a series of programmes and activities designed to help states comply with ICAO security standards and procedures. The issuance of ICAO standard Machine Readable Travel Documents, especially ePassports enhanced with biometric identification, is an effective way of increasing the security of air travel.

In the long-term, we must diligently assess new and emerging threats, such as bacteriological and chemical weapons, man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) and the misuse of civil aircraft themselves as weapons of destruction. Our objection is to continually monitor and upgrade existing security processes to ensure that they are commensurate with the level of threat identified, while expediting the clearance of passengers and cargo at airports.

Air navigation

Again, while it has become more difficult to forecast traffic growth over the next few years, we can certainly expect an increase in the number of aircraft flying the skies of the world. There will be a corresponding need for high performance air navigation systems to cope with the anticipated airspace congestion that will result. In some regions, congestion has already reached critical levels, affecting n route, terminal and aerodrome operations.

ICAO is actively supporting states implementation of initiatives described in the Global Air Navigation Plan that contribute to ensuring the safe, efficient and sustainable operation of the aviation system. Initiatives (PBN) provide tremendous benefits in terms of reduction in fuel use and CO2 emissions.

Our vision is for an interoperable and seamless global air traffic management (ATM) system, that applies to all users, during all phases of flight, and that meets agreed levels of safety, provides for optimum economic operations, is environmentally sustainable and meets national security requirements.

In September 2008, ICAO hosted the ‘Forum on Integration and Harmonisation of NextGen and SASAR into the Global ATM Framework’, in an effort to allow all stakeholders an opportunity to share knowledge about the future of ATM systems. NextGen, the programme being developed by the United States and SESAR, Europe’s programme to meet its future aviation needs, along with initiatives underway in other states must evolve within the framework provided by ICAO’s Global Air Traffic Management Operational Concept and Global Air Navigation Plan.

Environment

Perhaps the most daunting challenge we face is helping to protect the environment. The fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), confirms that climate change is real, much of it likely due to an increase in greenhouse gas concentration from human activity. Aviation is estimate to account for about two percent of human produced CO2, the major greenhouse gas.

Although aircraft today are about 70% more fuel efficient than they were 30 years ago and newer models like the Airbus 380 and Boeing 787 are even more efficient, projected increases in traffic will outpace our capacity to being down greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. The solution lies the development of a combination of technical, operational and market-based measures, under the leadership of ICAO as stipulated in Assembly Resolution A36-22.

In 2009, the ICAO will hold a number of important meetings on environmental protection, including two groundbreaking events on alternative fuels – a preparatory workshop in February and a full-fledged conference in November. This latest initiative, based on conclusive scientific research, underscores the view that the ultimate goal must be the elimination of carbon emission from aviation.

Long-term, the world aviation community will continue to develop the full range of options currently available – improved operational and technological measures and various market-based measures, such as emissions trading and carbon offsets.

Personnel

To address all of these individual challenges effectively, and others that may later appear on the horizon, will require a corresponding highly skilled aviation workforce. The problem is that in the next few years, there will be a massive wave of retirements from the current workforce. The growth of the industry in certain regions is not consistent with current training and capacity.

Moreover, an increasingly automated, dynamic and complex working environment is fundamentally reshaping the nature and relationships of safety-critical jobs. Pilots are becoming information managers in an extremely sophisticated glass cockpit; air traffic controllers who were used to an essentially manual activity have to adapt to a fully automated series of procedures; and mechanics identified with tool boxes are now involved in trend analysis and predictive maintenance.

That is not all. The quest for optimum safety goes beyond the men and women involved in the operational dimension of aviation, it also encompasses the equally complex discipline of aviation management. Managers largely define, promote and help sustain the safety culture of their respective organisations. This has become increasingly challenging with the rapid and sustained growth in traffic and the no less rapid evolution of high technology and its transformation of all aspects of the workplace. In the transition between the old and the new way of doing business, whether in operations or in management, a delicate balance must be achieved between the current set of skills and those that will be needed in the future.

Strategic objectives

The ICAO works to achieve its vision of safe, secure and sustainable development of civil aviation through co-operation amongst its member states. To implement this vision, the organisation has established the following strategic objectives for the period 2005-2010:

• Safety
• Security
• Environmental protection
• Efficiency
• Continuity
• Rule of law