Air transport is 80 years old
This is false, you will tell me, and you will be right. The first commercial flight took place in Florida in… 1914 and before the Second World War, major companies such as Pan Am, Air France, Imperial Airways, and others were already crisscrossing the skies and had traced important international networks. Pan Am, for example, crossed the Pacific with giant seaplanes, and European operators went as far as Australia and many Asian and African countries. So why date air transport to 1944?
On December 7, 1944, in Chicago, the representatives of 52 countries signed the real renaissance of air transport by laying down the rules that would make it prosperous. This required the creation of an entity responsible for the development of regulations and their enforcement. To tell the truth, the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) only took its current title on April 4, 1947, after the ratification of the majority of the founding countries, i.e., 26, since decisions are taken by a simple majority.
To be honest, I’m still surprised by the vision of the founders. Let us remember that in December 1944, the world was really on fire. The war had reached a savagery never known in the past, and little by little, the alliance against the totalitarian countries—Germany, Japan, and their affiliates—was gaining the upper hand. At that point, there was no longer any doubt as to the winners. However, the members of this constituent assembly have laid down as a principle of future air transport that it will be managed with the same rules in each signatory country and that they will apply even to defeated countries. It was not easy, and it is the greatness of the participants in the creation of ICAO, to have understood the importance of air transport for the recovery of the planet and its future prosperity.
To date, 193 countries are members of ICAO, the same number as the participants in the UN. They are represented in this body by an ambassador. That is to say that air transport has a global governance that works rather well despite the low number of permanent civil servants, around 1,000. Many other international organizations would do well to adopt a similar system of governance.
This works well because the ICAO has mandated each of the member states to apply the rules laid down by the organization. But the Civil Aviation Directorates of each state are themselves audited by delegates from the head office, and if the inspection shows significant dysfunctions, the country in question is simply removed from the ICAO until its inspection shows that it has returned to good practices. This means that “blacklisted” countries can no longer issue navigation certificates to their airlines and that the latter can no longer operate international flights. This is probably the best way to avoid the effects of corruption that would have the effect of reducing the security of the airlines of these states. Several countries have been in such a position in the past, such as Nigeria and the Philippines. This has forced the governments concerned to review the entire organization of their own civil aviation. They did so and once again joined global air travel.
Let us keep in mind that this unique system has allowed a fantastic development of world trade while forcing air transport to become safer and more environmentally friendly. In 1983, the ICAO created a Committee for the Protection of the Environment. As a result of the standards enacted, aircraft noise has decreased by 75% since 1970 and fuel consumption by 80%. Admittedly, it seems difficult, if not impossible, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025, which is the objective of global air transport, but the constant pressure put on all players will certainly have a very beneficial effect on the ecological impact of this sector of activity.
The ICAO only issues standards for all aspects of air transport, from radio frequencies and the standardization of diplomas to major safety rules, and they apply to all players: from manufacturers to airports and, of course, carriers. It may not seem like much, but it is thanks to these standards that air transport has reached an incomparable level of development while improving its safety to the point where we are approaching excellence.
Happy birthday to ICAO and happy birthday to modern air transport. May it continue for a long time in the same way.
