A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR GENERAL
Kurt Edwards
Since our last update, the coronavirus has upended our world personally and professionally. We hope you and yours are all keeping safe and healthy.
IBAC has received a smattering of data on the effect of COVID-19 and related travel restrictions on business aviation. Please feel free to share any operational or traffic data that you have, including anecdotes such as no movements from X airport or bizav fleet in Y largely grounded. IBAC would be willing to share it among the members so that you can all see what is going on around the world.
IBAC has joined CAPSCA (the Collaborative Arrangement for the Prevention and Management of Public Health Events in Civil Aviation), grouping ICAO, the WHO, IATA, regulators, and other industry bodies, through which much COVID-19-related information is being shared. IBAC pushes it to the member associations as we receive the information, but you may also consult the link above for all the information made available.
Linked to CAPSCA, the business aviation community is invited to submit any questions about operating in the COVID-19 environment to be included in a FAQ on the CAPSCA website. If you have any questions, please submit them using this link.
Workshops & Events
REGISTER for a workshop near you IN 2020, today. View all IS-BAO and IS-BAH Workshops HERE
Download The IBAC Brochure HERE
The office in Montreal remains operational. Andy Meyer, the Director of ICAO Liaison, is in the office most days. Otherwise, he, Joelle El Hajj, and Chloe Fleurant are working remotely. Most services in the ICAO building have been curtailed. While we can still produce Aircrew Cards, auditor badges, and registration certificates, we are able to ship items only once a week. COVID-19 restrictions make dropping off mail or express packages at other locations both a lengthy and risky proposition. We appreciate your and your members’ understanding and patience.
The United Nations has reached out to IBAC regarding the interest of IS-BAO operators and IS-BAH handlers in supporting disaster-response efforts to fight the pandemic. IBAC sent an INFO message to operators and certain handlers in the programmes to collect contact information if interested. Initial responses have been positive. As the UN firms up its plans, we will be able to provide more information on the program and likely needs. The UN outreach is a compliment regarding the IBAC programmes’ standards, third-party audit structure, and integrity.
NEW WEBSITE! We are happy to announce the launch of a new IBAC.org website last weekend. I want to give credit and thanks to Marj Rose, IBAC’s communications manager, for driving this initiative. She, her team, and the IBAC team have done a great job. This new site reflects our progress to expand IBAC’s communications with the business aviation community and increase participation and support in our programmes and services. As with any new website, we are still working out the finer details and making adjustments to accommodate all our customers and colleagues. We appreciate your patience while we work through these final updates and hope you enjoy the new look! Please feel free to send your comments or suggestions to comms@ibac.org.
ICAO Update
Andreas Meyer – Director, ICAO Liaison
IBAC attended the first North Atlantic Cybersecurity Workshop, held at the ICAO Regional Office in Paris from 3 to 4 March 2020. During this meeting IBAC was able to contribute to the development of a North Atlantic specific risk assessment methodology to assess the developing risk to the appropriate cyberspace for operations over the North Atlantic.
The COVID-19 situation has led ICAO to cancel all meetings until further notice and to reduce activities both at Headquarters and all Regional Office to an absolute minimum physical presence until 13 April 2020 – for the time being. Nevertheless, the IBAC office in Montreal remains engaged in the discussions and dialogues with ICAO and other resident Delegations.
Rising concerns of industry regarding how to restart the air transport sector and how to address licence, medical and certification issues are starting to be considered by ICAO, the Air Navigation Commission, and the Council. IBAC will actively participate in these discussions and be at the table of the dialogue from the beginning.
And as Kurt mentioned, IBAC has also commenced discussions with the United Nation on how to best support the global Humanitarian Disaster Response organized and coordinate by the UN.
IS-BAO
Bennet Walsh, IS-BAO Programme Director
From the IS-BAO side, we also introduced the remote auditing option for Stage 1, and 2 operators and have already seen it to be a positive solution during these difficult times that require social distancing. See more information and access to a guide, HERE.
As an additional response to COVID-19 and its ensuing limitations on travel and social interaction, we are now offering the IS-BAO workshops as live online webinars. See the press release HERE and you can always check the website for the latest schedule as we begin to add more options.
And we invite all to visit the NEW IBAC Website as described above. And please look for the new INFO that will be coming out to all IS-BAO operators regarding log-in credentials and access.
IS-BAH
Terry Yeomans – IS-BAH Programme Director
The IS-BAH programme had a very busy start to the year attended the EASA GH Roadmap running six workshops and had seen some significant interest from those wishing to start the implementation journey. Those who have reached Stage 1 or higher has now passed the 225 locations mark globally, thank you to all of those who are supporting the industry programme.
We also continued to provide support with the EASA GH Meeting 2 held in Cologne and two further ICAO GHTF meetings held in London and Montreal before the lockdown began. Work is progressing with both groups in the development of International ground handling standards (ICAO) and implementing rules to support the regulation of ground handling in Europe (EASA).
Due to the current travel situation and social distancing measures in place we have introduced the option for remote auditing assessments for Stage 1 and 2, initial and recurrent. See more information and a guide HERE
We also continue to look at the best possible means of delivering the workshops for IS-BAH using video technology. More to come from this in the next few weeks.
As we all face difficult times, we continue to support ground handling service providers by helping ensure any future regulations remain technology neutral and fully scalable for our sector to come out of this stronger.
SUSTAINABILITY
Bruce Parry - IBAC Environment Director
CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation) Eligible Emission Units - On the 13th March 2020 the ICAO Council approved the use of eligible emission units to be used against CORSIA obligations by operators. Eligible emissions units are central to the success of the CORSIA offsetting program and are made available through approved registries. The ICAO Technical Advisory Body (TAB) has evaluated these programs to establish that they fulfil ICAO CORSIA requirements and recommended them for immediate availability to operators. IBAC has created an Environment Guidance Paper that provides a brief explanation, which is available on the IBAC website together with and an "Offset 101" presentation under "Sustainability > CORSIA".
IBAC was scheduled to make a presentation at NBAA's Schedulers and Dispatchers Conference giving updated details on CORSIA and EU ETS emission reduction schemes. Unfortunately, this presentation was never made as the conference was shortened due to the initial concerns over the COVID-19 outbreak. NBAA is currently working on a plan to get all presentations described by their presenters and onto the conference/NBAA website. We will let you know when this becomes available.
Source: mailchi.mp/ibac/ibac
