Aviation Safety and ICAO: History, Impact, and Future Outlook

This essay delves into the history, impact, and future of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on both civilian and commercial aviation. It traces the organization's evolution from its inception as the International Commission for Air Navigation (ICAN) to its current role as a specialized agency of the United Nations, highlighting key milestones and conventions. The essay examines ICAO's significant effects on civilian aviation through the development of global safety plans, security standards, and facilitation of international air transportation, ultimately enhancing passenger safety and promoting air travel accessibility. Furthermore, it analyzes ICAO's influence on commercial aviation, emphasizing its role in establishing standards for efficient business operations, job creation, and revenue generation in the tourism sector. The essay concludes with predictions about the future growth of the aviation industry and the continued importance of ICAO in shaping its development through policy creation and safety enhancements.

Running head: AVIATION SAFETY
Aviation Safety
Name of the student
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Author Note

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Introduction
The ICAO refers to the International Civil Organization that is a special agency of United
Nations (UN). It is associated with the setting a standard to regulate the aviation sector in the
world. The main role of ICAO is to classify the techniques and the principles of the international
airway navigation. In addition to this they are also involved in the planning of the security and
safety of international air transportation. In addition to this, they are also responsible for the
development and implementation of those policies related to security and safety of the industry.
For example it can be said that, ICAO is responsible for the developing the protocols for the
investigation of any air accident (History of ICAO, 2018). In this essay the history of the ICAO
from its beginning, its effect on the civilian aviation and commercial aviation is discussed. In the
later part of this essay, the possible future of the organization is discussed.
History of the agency from inception to present
ICAO is the specialized agency of United Nation. The initial organization that was
engaged in the same was International Commission for Air Navigation (ICAN) and in 1903, the
first convention of this organization was held in berlin Germany. After that, the second
convention of the organization was held 1906 in which almost 27 countries was present. After
that in 1912, third convention of the organization was held in London in which, for the first time
radio call signs was used by the aircraft. In the year of 1944, 52 countries attended the
conference on aviation in Chicago named Chicago Convention. In this convention Provisional
international Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO) was founded and it remained functional up to
the year of 1945. After that, 26 more countries signed the convention in 1947 and PICAO was
disestablished on 4th April, 1947. At that time in October, 1947 ultimately International Civil

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Aviation Organization (ICAO) was found and it had become the agency of the UN that is linked
to the UNESCO. Currently, ICAO has it has headquarter in Montreal in Canada. Approximately,
192 countries are the current member of the ICAO (History of ICAO, 2018).
Effects on civilian aviation
ICAO controls the aviation industry worldwide and it is responsible for setting manuals
and recommendation of the safety of the aviation industry in a worldwide manner. One of the
most important part of the ICAO is the aviation security. For this, they develop a global aviation
safety plan and also a Global Air navigation plan. The development of the standards enhances
the security and safety of the civilian aviation in the whole world. The recommended policies
and practices by the ICAO contains 16 annexes and 4 PANS and those are executed by following
more than 50 manuals (ICAO, 2018). Nowadays it is very important to maintain the safety of the
civilian. The trend of threat to civilian aviation was arrived in front of the world in late 1960s
and from that time ICAO took the role of leadership in managing the safety and security of the
aviation sector for civilian. In order to address the current threat of civilian aviation, ICAO
completely dependent on the personnel of the Aviation Security Panel. ICAO also engage
themselves in various activities of the facts that are related to the security of the civilian aviation.
In addition to this, they also provide supports to the local agencies in giving support to the fact of
safety and security of the civilians. ICAO also address the travel document security by using the
Machine Readable Travel Document (MRTD) and for this, ICAO develops a standard for
Machine Readable Passports (MRP). This standard should be followed by the whole world as a
standard manual and almost more than 180 countries installed the system (ICAO, 2018). It will
ultimately result in enhancing the security of the civilian passengers. ICAO also concerns about
the facilitation of the internationally operated air transportation, successful clearance of the

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passengers, crew members and baggage of the civilian passenger. In addition to the passengers
safety and security of the passengers. With enhanced safety and security, nowadays more people
arte rely on the transportation by aviation and more number of people are now using this method
of transport. Aviation has become the most reliable and safest mode of transport nowadays. By
various policies and recommendation by ICAO the aviation has created faithfulness among the
people and aviation transport serve the rural communities in providing health care and other
facilities. Students of the developing countries are also get benefits from the aviation industry as
they can easily reach in any part of the world. The parental agency of the ICAO, UN also took an
agenda to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) by the 2030 (Aviation Benefits,
2017). To achieve this, the advancement of the aviation sector is very much important. The
policies, initiatives and recommendation of the ICAO has helped to keep the aviation facility
under an affordable condition and this result in transformation of the air travel to an accessible
commodity from a luxury commodity and it is helping the civilian aviation by giving more
opportunities to travel in a low cost with less amount of time. With time, ICAO is introducing
more safety policy and recommendation and that represent the aviation industry as a growing
industry. The arrival of the low cost carriers (LCC) in the market causes 1.1 million civilian to
travel via air ways in 2016 and the number suggests that, it is 10.5% more than that of the
number of 2015 (Aviation Benefits, 2017).
Effects on commercial aviation
The effect on commercial industry of the ICAO is very much dependent on the economic
benefit of the aviation industry. In addition this, policies of ICAO also support the cargo
transportation of the world and they try to maintain the timeline of the delivery and try to avoid
the unnecessary delay of the transportation. ICAO controls almost more than 12000 global

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standards and recommended practices (SARPs) and the SARPs secures the efficient business
operations in commercial sectors along with securing safety of the stakeholders (ICAO, 2018). In
2015, ICAO has taken a long term planning in order to liberalize the international air
transportation. By implementation of the policies of standards by ICAO ultimately affect the
commercial sector by providing jobs to the huge number of people. In order to transport 3.8
billion passengers and 53 million tons of freight, aviation industry has generated almost 9.9
million job vacancies and this resulted in increasing the 0.87% of world GDP that is almost
664.4 billion US dollar (Aviation Benefits, 2017). Growth of the aviation sector has resulted in
increasing the revenue from the tourism sector as well. In recent time, almost 0.6 billion tourist
uses air way for going to their destination. In 2016, $292.2 million revenue was generated from
the tourism and it is one of the commercial impact of the aviation industry. The affordable
airway cost allow almost 87% B2C e-commerce parcel to be carried by the air way (Aviation
Benefits, 2017).
Prediction on the possible future of the agency
From the studies it is seen that, by 2034 the passengers and amount of air freight will be
more than double in comparison to the amount of 2016. The passenger traffic is expected to be
almost 14 trillion along with an overall growth of 4.4 % per year. In addition to this, by 2034,
aviation will contribute 99 million jobs and will generate $ 5.9 trillion GDP (Aviation Benefits,
2017). To support the exponential growth of the industry avia6ion must need continuous
development and in order to do this it is very important to construct more policies by ICAO in
future.

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Conclusion
Lastly, it can be concluded that, ICAO is one of the primary organization in order to
make the aviation industry more enriched and improved so that the civilian aviation and the
commercial aviation can be improved more. This improvement will ultimately help to enhance
the quality of the aviation industry. The policies of the ICAO will help the aviation industry by
many ways.

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References
Aviation Benefits (2017). Icao.int. Available at:
https://www.icao.int/sustainability/Documents/AVIATION-BENEFITS-2017-web.pdf
[Accessed 22 Dec. 2018].
History of ICAO. (2018). The History of ICAO and the Chicago Convention. Retrieved from
https://www.icao.int/about-icao/History/Pages/default.aspx
ICAO. (2018). Security. Retrieved from https://www.icao.int/Security/Pages/default.aspx