Int’l air navigation system of the future to lead to greater safety, convenience

The Eleventh Air Navigation Conference of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) endorsed recently an operational concept for air navigation services worldwide that will enhance aviation safety and improve passenger convenience in terms of fewer delays and shorter flight times.

Safety was reconfirmed as the most important element of the overall performance of Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems. Other expectations include efficiency, regularity, cost-effectiveness and protection of the environment.

To increase the capacity of the existing airspace, the Conference recommended greater harmonization of the air navigation systems between regions, collaborative decision-making, and global balancing between demand and capacity.

Implementation over the next 25 years and beyond will ensure optimum efficiency of the global ATM system. This will prove essential as demand for airspace capacity increases in the coming year.

Airspace and airport congestion already exist in many parts of the world, a situation expected to worsen as recovery and growth in the air transport industry continues. ICAO’s latest forecast calls for world airline passenger traffic to grow by 4.4 percent in 2004 and 6.3 percent in 2005, with long-term growth at an average annual rate of around 4 percent.

The Conference emphasized that safe and efficient flight operations rely on the quality of aeronautical information and urged ICAO to give high priority to the completion of guidance material to operators concerning the quality assurance of such information, from originating point to end-user.

“The conference achieved its main objective of establishing the future direction for the development of a globally harmonized and seamless air navigation system, while focusing on our number one priority, passenger safety,” said Dr. Assad Kotaite, president of the Council of ICAO.

ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of civil aviation in the world. A specialized agency of the United Nations, it sets international standards and regulations necessary for the safety, security, efficiency and regularity of air transport and serves as the medium for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 188 Contracting States.