The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations’ aviation agency, along with its runway safety partner organizations recently adopted a runway safety action plan at its Lima, Peru, meeting.
ICAO’s Global Runway Safety Action Plan is intended to prevent runway accidents by coordinating the safety activities of air navigation service providers countries, airlines, airports, and manufacturers.
“Runway safety has been a global aviation priority for more than 15 years, and this new action plan is an important outcome of the detailed analysis of runway risk factors recently undertaken by ICAO,” Fang Liu, ICAO secretary general, said.
Since the ICAO developed its Runway Safety Programme and established runway safety teams at airports, the number of runway-accident fatalities has decline. There still is work to be done, despite the successes, Liu said.
Liu also recently told the audience at a global summit in Montreal that she does not see the aviation industry meeting demand in the future without hiring more workers. Many current workers will retire, she said, while passenger numbers will likely increase to 20 million daily within the next 15 years. The industry also will face competition from other industries for highly skilled employees.
To keep up with demand, the industry will need to hire 492,000 pilots and 94,000 air traffic controllers by 2036.