ICAO reaches 'historic agreement' on aviation safety

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said it reached a"historic agreement" last week on aviation safety, security and aircraft emissions.

The deal reached by the 190 members of the Montreal-based United Nations organization at its 37th general assembly "builds on achievements since the last ICAO Assembly in 2007," the communiqué

said, "which included a global goal of 2 per cent annual fuel efficiency improvement up to the year 2050, a global framework for the development and deployment of sustainable alternative fuels for aviation, and a target of 2013 for a CO2 standard for aircraft engines."
 

The two-week conference also yielded "important advancements in aviation safety and aviation security."

But ICAO conceded that "some states (expressed) reservations and (called) upon the ICAO Council to continue its work on specific aspects of the agreement" regarding the environment.

"New initiatives include the development of a framework for market -based measures (MBMs), a feasibility study on the creation of a global MBM scheme and guiding principles for states to use when designing and

implementing market-based measures for international aviation, all of which will be reviewed at the next Assembly in 2013."

ICAO signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S., the European Union and the International Air Transport Association to create a Global Safety Information Exchange.

"ICAO will coordinate the collection, analysis and exchange of aviationsafety information among exchange members and disseminate to theglobal aviation community."The goal is to adopt a "safety strategy based on the sharing of criticalsafety information among governments and industry stakeholders. Greater availability of information in a transparent process improves the ability to better analyze and predict safety risks and to take action before issues result in accidents. Acting proactively on risk indicators can help to significantly reduce the accidents in all regions of the world."

In 2012, ICAO will host a runway safety symposium here to address the issue of runway safety.
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