ACI World welcomes updated ICAO COVID-19 guidance

Airports Council International (ACI) World has welcomed the updated guidance for Member States in addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on air travel, which has been published by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

As parts of the global aviation ecosystem continue to make small steps towards recovery, global consistency remains the key to a sustained and effective restart of operations. Airports, airlines, governments and regulators have looked to ICAO to provide consistent guidance that is needed to underpin globally harmonised measures that will increase public confidence in air travel and support continued safe operations.

The second edition of the “Take-off” Guidance Document that has been published by ICAO’s Council Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) includes welcome new information, including:

• Guidance on a risk-based and evidence-based approach to support states in implementing a multi-layered risk management strategy to assist in the restart and recovery of operations
• A risk management framework with a decision-making tool to determine the risk of transporting potentially infectious passengers and/or importing COVID-19
• Information on factors that states could consider should they elect to implement testing, as well as guidance on how to implement testing.

ACI World’s Director General, Luis Felipe de Oliveira, said: “We welcome the new guidance from the ICAO Council Aviation Recovery Task Force which will help to establish a globally harmonised approach to health measures and testing. The overriding issue is one of testing – we need an agreed approach to testing as a means of facilitating safe travel instead of the restrictive quarantine measures that are blunting the industry’s recovery efforts.”

“The acceptance and implementation of measures by member states will reinforce the alignment of the sector with requirements from individual countries’ health authorities, providing the confidence we need to safely restart operations and contribute to the global economy recovery,” he continued.

ACI World is also anticipating the publication of the Testing and Cross-Border Risk Management Measures Guidance Manual that is being produced by ICAO’s Collaborative Arrangement for the Prevention and Management of Public Health Events in Civil Aviation (CAPSCA).

De Oliveira added: “The manual will be an invaluable contribution to the industry, as it will provide countries with a risk management framework for evaluating testing options and factors to consider in implementing testing. This will guide countries in doing away with quarantine to implement flexible and risk-based testing which will ensure that passengers recognise that their health and safety is the priority and the recovery of air travel can be accelerated.”