A Word From the Director General
Kurt Edwards
Happy New Year! I hope 2024 is off to a good start for all. The new year presents more exciting opportunities for IBAC and business aviation community along the themes of safety, sustainability, and innovation.
With regard to safety, both IS-BAO and IS-BAH will roll out new offerings this year. In fact, IS-BAO’s new workshop structure starts this month, tailored to recommendations from operators and auditors. We will also continue our cooperative efforts with ICAO and regulatory authorities in operator and ground-handling safety.
On the sustainability front, continued emphasis on promoting production and use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) remains a priority, and IBAC will continue to work with our members and industry on demonstrating and communicating business aviation’s commitment to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
With regard to innovation, IBAC’s efforts on advanced air mobility and remotely piloted aircraft systems will ramp up as ICAO’s AAM Study Group and RPAS Panel advance work on incorporating new entrants into the air transport system.
With regard to internal innovation, IBAC looks forward to building further the Industry Partner Programme—our so-called “global industry town square”—by bringing on new members and holding the first Industry Partner Advisory Body meeting in May around EBACE in Geneva. More details to follow shortly.
Much work this year will be devoted to preparing for the 14th ICAO Air Navigation Conference in the fall, a critical meeting leading to next year’s ICAO Assembly. Issues related to safety, sustainability, and innovation will be on the table, helping to shape the future global air transport system.
SUSTAINABILITY
Claude Hurley, Director, Environment & Flight Operations
Innovation was at the forefront in December, with IBAC participating in the Global Uncrewed Traffic Management Association’s Harmonized Skies event, ICAO’s Drone Enable Symposium, and ICAO’s Advanced Air Mobility Study Group’s discussions.
ICAO’s Drone Enable symposium was seen as a success, with close to 700 participants presenting, and discussing recent developments in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), including open questions remaining on UAS traffic management systems (UTM). Much of the last decade’s work on developing Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) on Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) is nearing maturity, and we should expect ICAO to propose a new Annex 6, Part IV on international RPAS Operations in the near term. This was the last Drone Enable that ICAO will host, as the standard-making effort now widens to enable the safe integration of Advanced Air Mobility aircraft into our shared skies. As such, IBAC continues to participate actively in ICAO’s AAM-Study Group, which, amongst other tasks is developing a proposed vision and a framework on how best to harmonize the international effort to enable and integrate AAM new entrants.
ICAO’s first Advanced Air Mobility Symposium is planned for September in Montréal, with its stated aim to “build upon the developments of DRONE ENABLE with attention given to concepts for AAM, electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, vertiports, automation, trust framework and airspace integration”.
IS-BAO
Andrew Karas, IS-BAO Programme Director
- Welcome to 2024! Thank you for supporting the IS-BAO Programme and we hope you all have a prosperous new year.
- The new IS-BAO workshop format and syllabus has been finalized. Registration for IS-BAO Initial and IS-BAO Recurrent courses are now available on our website International Business Aviation Council | Workshops (ibac.org).
- Runway incursion is a persistent threat to aviation safety. A recent project with Flight Safety Foundation and Eurocontrol has produced the first volume supporting the Global Action Plan for the Prevention of Runway Incursions. This volume documents recommendations from airports, regulators, service providers and industry associations. We were fortunate to be invited to participate and the document is available on the IBAC portal Login to the IBAC Portal. Additional volumes with guidance material will be released in late spring 2024.
- The IBAC portal has been upgraded with a function to notify registered users of new documents or program announcements. Users should have received a recent notification with IS-BAO Programme highlights from 2023. After logging onto the IBAC portal, click on the notification icon on the top headline Login to the IBAC Portal to view what is new.
IS-BAH
Terry Yeomans, Programme Director
- It is a good time to get the message out to ensure aircraft and GSE are secured, especially during severe windy conditions. A number of bad weather events have occurred over the past few weeks resulting in several ground damage events reported, just a few examples here:
A/C was damaged after three luggage carts were blown into the aircraft causing damage to the fairing of engine 1 and under the cockpit.
A/C was hit by a luggage cart which damaged the engine.
A/C weather vaned during strong winds, striking airport equipment.
A/C was blown onto its side during storm.
- We will be grateful to hear from the Member Associations and Industry Partners regarding any opportunities to present the IS-BA programmes to members and clients in 2024.
- The new year starts our calendar of workshops for 2024. Bookings are open for the first sessions starting 22/23 January, with early bird pricing available.
VISIT THE IBAC STORE
We've added IBAC Swag, available to those who want to promote IBAC, and the IS-BAO, IS-BAH Programmes. Visit the store today.! (note that IS-BAO and IS-BAH Registered organizations may choose to order items with official Stage seals through there IS-BA portal or contact comms@ibac.org for access.)
Source: https://us11.campaign-archive.com/
