Juan Carlos Salazar of Colombia has officially assumed the office of ICAO secretary general, succeeding Dr. Fang Liu of China. He assumes this role as CEO of the UN’s specialised agency for civil aviation as the international flight network continues to assure the efficient global movement of food, vaccines, e-commerce, and other essential supplies and personnel, despite the air transport industry still being severely confronted by COVID-19, greatly diminished routes, and slowly rebounding international air travel and tourism.
“It is a great honour to be assuming this role at this time, and to have the opportunity to help governments and ICAO play an important part in how this sector builds back better and recovers from the global pandemic,” Salazar said. “We are still facing some tremendous challenges to the restoration of global air connectivity today, and with many regions and populations all over the world facing prolonged economic, social, and emotional hardship as a result.”
Salazar is a former director general of Civil Aviation for Colombia, and speaks fluent Spanish, English, French, and basic Arabic. He has more than 26 years of experience in civil aviation, public policy, and the management of large and complex organisations, and plans to work closely with the ICAO Council to further strengthen the agency’s governance and ethical framework, to review the organisational structure of the Secretariat, to build a digital transformation programme, and to modernise the working methods of the Organization to keep pace with aviation innovation. He has also promised to further strengthen ICAO’s global presence through its regional offices and support for key regional priorities, and to assure that special efforts are undertaken through the organisation to support developing states that have suffered the most devastating impacts of the pandemic. The organisation will further support Member States in the implementation of CORSIA and other capacity building activities aiming at carbon offsetting and initiatives for reducing emissions from international civil aviation.
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