ICAO Secretary General hails Thailand’s aviation leadership: At a bilateral meeting that took place in Bangkok with H.E. General Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar congratulated the host State of ICAO’s Asia and Pacific Regional Office on its exemplary commitment to advancing a sustainable and resilient recovery of its aviation and tourism sectors in line with related ICAO guidance. The meeting between the leaders was attended by Saksayam Chidchob, Minister of Transport of Thailand; the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Chayatan Phromsorn; and the Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT), Suttipong Kongpool. The Secretary General appreciated Thailand’s significant contributions towards all of ICAO’s safety, security, and sustainability objectives for global aviation, highlighting its work to continuously enhance its oversight capacities in accordance with the relevant ICAO standards and recommended practices. Thailand’s implementation of the recommendations of the ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) were seen as particularly important to its current successes, especially given the high importance of international and domestic air tourism to its overall economic prosperity. Salazar also attended meetings with CAAT and Aeronautical Radio of Thailand (AEROTHAI) officials, where he explored current technical and policy priorities. DGCA Kongpool was joined on these occasions by the CAAT Deputy Director General, Sarun Benjanirat, and AEROTHAI’s President and Executive Vice President (Operations), Dr. Nopasit Chakpitak and Tinnagorn Choowong, respectively. Salazar further highlighted AEROTHAI’s excellent infrastructure, especially in the area of Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM), acknowledging that Thailand is a key contributor to the work of the Asia/Pacific ATFM Steering Group, and appreciating the technical expertise it brings to the work of the Asia/Pacific System-Wide Information Management (SWIM) Task Force.
New training programme in Singapore: A new agreement reached between ICAO and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) will see the global delivery of an aviation recovery and resilience training programme for aviation leaders, accelerating the restoration of air services through improving alignment with international best practices. The agreement was signed in Singapore by ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar and the Director-General of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) Han Kok Juan. The training programme will target the Directors-General of Civil Aviation (DGCAs) of ICAO’s 193 Member States. CAAS will lead the programme development, while ICAO will contribute its subject-matter expertise and review the content. It will cover lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, with a particular focus on aviation safety, sustainability, technology and cybersecurity. “The launch of this programme holds the promise of a highly significant positive impact on the efforts led by governments and other stakeholders to accelerate and optimise the recovery of the global aviation sector, in particular through alignment with the internationally coordinated guidance developed by ICAO,” remarked Salazar. “The delivery of this content to the leadership and senior management level of civil aviation authorities worldwide will provide a significant boost towards achieving a sustainable and resilient future for air transport.” The first delivery of the programme is currently scheduled to take place in Singapore on 18 and 19 May 2022, with further deliveries foreseen to take place later this year. The agreement provides for the delivery of the training at multiple locations worldwide to facilitate access to States in all ICAO regions.
ICAO and IFAR reach cooperation agreement on aviation innovation: ICAO and the International Forum for Aviation Research (IFAR) will scale-up their cooperation and information sharing to promote innovation through a new agreement concluded in Montréal. The agreement was signed on the occasion of a high-level meeting between the Secretary General, the President of the ICAO Council and Council members and IFAR Principals. Both parties acknowledged the need for the independent assessment of innovations to frame and protect the notion of general interest, within the context of a variety of transformative changes within the aviation industry. Focusing on the promotion of the innovative and sustainable development of international civil aviation globally, the Memorandum of Understanding calls for ICAO and IFAR to cooperate toward their respective safety, security, and sustainability goals, and collaborate on the scientific assessment of new avenues for innovation. “This new ICAO-IFAR agreement will be transformative in permitting the research community to participate in a more dynamic and effective manner with ICAO,” remarked ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar. “Monitoring and understanding the impact of technological and process innovations is a pre-requisite to effectively supporting States in the establishment of related international guidance.” The exponential growth in the number of aviation innovators across the world will help the sector make the generational changes needed to meet the critical emissions reduction commitments and address the sustainability challenges the industry faces, including air space congestion, reopening of boarders, digitisation, liberalisation and resilience against future crises. Thus allowing international aviation to become a stronger vector for peace, growth and prosperity for all.
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