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The Chicago Convention laid the foundation for the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which is a body of sovereign States charged with coordinating and regulating international air travel, in addition to creation of a global regulatory framework for the orderly growth of international civil aviation.
On the date of signing of the Convention, twenty six States ratified the Convention and the Convention became effective on 4 April 1947 with the receipt of requisite ratifications by States and facilitated the formal establishment of ICAO. In October of the same year, ICAO was recognised as a specialised agency of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The Convention has since been revised eight times viz. in 1959, 1963, 1969, 1975, 1980, 1997, 2000 and 2006 to keep pace with the development of industry and to facilitate the administrative requirements of the organisation.
As of date, the Chicago Convention has 191 Member State parties, which includes all Member States of the United Nations except Dominica, Liechtenstein, and Tuvalu and the Cook Islands. All these States have the right to attend the ICAO Assembly, which meets once in every three years at its headquarters in Montreal, Canada.
The governing body of the ICAO is the Council which has 36 Member States elected through votes of the Member States during the Assembly sessions. The Council is headed by the President elected through Member States in the Council. The ICAO administrative functions are carried out by the Secretariat headed by the Secretary General. ICAO has seven regional offices located at different parts of the world and Sri Lanka belongs to the Regional Office located in Bangkok, which is the Regional Office for Asia and Pacific Regions.
Articles of the Convention
The very first Article of the Convention recognises that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over airspace above its territory. It is under this principle, that each Member State seeks permission from other States for aircraft registered in the Member State to fly over their space or land in their territories, for technical or commercial purposes.
The Convention stipulates various technical, administrative and operational requirements which each Member State shall effectively implement and consistently enforce for safety, security, efficiency, regularity and economy of international civil aviation. The Convention has 96 Articles supplemented by 10 Annexes which contain more than 10,000 Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs).
Article 33 specifies the requirements relating to mutual recognition of Certificates and Licence issued or validated by Member States on the strict condition that the issue or validation of such licences and certificates has been made satisfying the requirements in the Convention as a minimum. It is therefore essential for every Member States to comply with the ICAO SARPs if they are to engage international civil aviation without restrictions imposed by other States.
Continuous assessment
With the intentions of enhancing safety in air travel, the Member States have empowered the ICAO in 2010 to conduct continuous assessment on the Member States to ascertain the degree of implementation of the SARPS in the respective States and publish Assessment Reports for the information of general public.
The results of Assessments conducted hitherto can be found in the home page of ICAO website at www.icao.int. This web page not only displays the effective implementation of SARPS by a selected State but also facilitate the reader to compare the level of effective compliance amongst States. It serves a useful and reliable tool for members of the public to gauge the focus of attention made by the States to promote aviation safety in the respective States. The level of effective implementation of SARPS by Sri Lanka is ascertained to be 87% ranking Sri Lanka to be number one in South Asia, number four in Asia and Pacific region and 19 in the whole world.
Indispensable and integral
Today, air transport has become an indispensable and integral part of the modern global society. It brings together family and friends from different countries and different cultures driving international tourism and trade, which in turn generates economic growth, maintains millions of jobs, improves living standards and alleviates poverty.
It is a lifeline for island states and land-locked countries for tapping into regional and world markets. It gives access to essential services like health care in remote areas with non-existent or poor ground transportation. It is the only mode of transport which can connect any two points in the world. Air Transport provides humanitarian assistance during emergencies caused by natural disasters, famine or armed conflict, in a timely and expeditious manner.
Air transport is also exceptionally reliable. It is as safe, as secure and as environmentally responsible as it has ever been since the early days of powered flight. This has inspired the highest levels of public confidence in what has been described as the most efficient mode of global mass transportation ever created.
Greatest challenge
The greatest challenge the air transport has to face is to maintain and improve on this remarkable achievement in the face of the consistent growth of air traffic which is 5% per annum on average. By 2030, the number of passengers on scheduled services will be more than double, from the current 2.7 billion passengers a year to some six billion, while the number of flights should also be double, from 30 million to 60 million a year.
Consequently the authorities responsible for air transport industry have to expand, upgrade or build airports and air navigation systems to accommodate the steady increase in demand without compromising safety, security, regularity, efficiency, economy and environment friendliness; the noble attributes that the industry has been consistently cherishing with excellent records of continuous improvements.
The industry will require hundreds of thousands of new aviation professionals to keep up with increasing demand and to replace those pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and others who will be retiring. The industry is in the leading edge where diverse achievements due to rapid advances in science and technology are first introduced and consequently the workforce needs to be highly professional to handle them. The industry is heavily capital intensive albeit returns in investment are marginal.
States, whether they are big or small in size or strong or weak in economy, have to prepare and equip their industry stakeholders meeting the common standards to be able to carry out business in a highly competitive global environment, which extend well beyond national borders.
Accident rate
The other challenge faced by the industry is reduce the accident rate worldwide albeit it is already at an historic low, in order to reduce the number of accidents and involved fatalities. It has also to take extra measures to strengthen and streamline security measures to ensure every possible action is in place to prevent attempts for unlawful interferences in air travel for variety of reasons.
The industry cannot ignore its social responsibility for minimising the adverse effects on environment although aviation’s contribution for greenhouse gas emission is only 2% compared with other contributory industries.
The facilitation at airports needs improvement to expedite passenger and cargo processing time on departure and arrival. Maintaining ever readiness at all passenger and cargo processing points at airports and airlines to control possible sudden spread of communicable diseases is another challenge the industry has to face with.
The new entrant to the industry is the space travel by average persons on commercial terms and it will very soon require intensive discussions amongst the State for an overhaul in the current legal and operating framework of civil aviation.
(The writer is the Director General of Civil Aviation & Chief Executive Officer, Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka.)
