28th April 2020:In order to help the civil aviation operate seamlessly and safely during the COVID-19 pandemic, IATA has called on the regulators to take urgent action. IATA has asked the states to take the following steps
- Work with the aviation industry to find temporary measures to ensure that licenses and certificates critical to managing aviation safety are extended to remain valid.
- File their temporary measures with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
- Recognize the measures of other states that are filed with ICAO.
Most of the global regulators have already provided the airlines and licenced crew with required flexibility, such as extensions to the validity periods for licenses, ratings and certificates, so operational capabilities can be maintained. However these measures must be filed with ICAO so that they can be visible and recognizable by the neighbouring states.
"Safety is always the top priority. We therefore commend ICAO for their swift action to facilitate the sharing of states' temporary regulatory extensions, making it easier for states to extend their mutual recognition,'' said Gilberto Lopez Meyer, IATA's Senior Vice President, Safety and Flight Operations.
At present the COVID-19 outbreak has impacted the work of numerous regulators across the globe. To help solve this, ICAO has established the COVID-19 Contingency Related Differences (CCRD) system to enable the states to record the differences to their policies.