Civil aviation authorities around the world should act quickly to aid international operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and in its aftermath, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) says.
IATA said Monday that governments should work with the aviation industry to implement temporary measures “to ensure that licenses and certificates critical to managing aviation safety are extended to remain valid.” The governments should notify the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) of the temporary measures they are taking, and they also should recognize the measures that other governments are filing with ICAO, IATA said.
Many regulators already have acted to give airlines and crewmembers the flexibility they need, “such as extensions to the validity periods for licenses, ratings and certificates, so operational capabilities can be maintained,” the organization said. “However to be effective, these measures must be filed with ICAO so that they can be visible to and recognized by counterpart states. Without mutual recognition, airlines are faced with uncertainty over whether they might be restricted by the states whose territory they enter.”
IATA noted that many aviation regulators also have been affected by the pandemic and have been unable to perform the standard administration of licenses. In response, ICAO has established the COVID-19 Contingency Related Differences system, which allows regulatory bodies to record any departures from their standard policies and “differences from ICAO standards on certification and licensing that may arise from mitigation measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”