European Parliament hosts 36th Plenary Session of the European Civil Aviation Conference

Directors General of the 44 European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) Member States came together with high level representatives from a wide range of ICAO Member States and international organisations, including ICAO, the European Commission, EUROCONTROL, EASA, IATA and ACI-EUROPE, in order to debate current issues in international civil aviation and adopt the ECAC work programme and budget for the next three years.

The Plenary Session heard addresses by the President of the Council of ICAO Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, as well as by ICAO Secretary General Fang Liu, by Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan, by Director General for Transport and Mobility of the European Commission Henrik Hololei, and by the CEO and Director General of IATA, Alexandre de Juniac.

Reminding of ECAC’s mission to promote safe, secure and sustainable air transport, ECAC Executive Secretary Salvatore Sciacchitano introduced the strategic discussions held on the first day of the Plenary which focused on defining the ambitions of European States for next year’s 40th ICAO Assembly Session in Montreal. Aviation security and facilitation, safety and air traffic management and aviation and the environment were each debated, in panel sessions whose members included senior figures in European aviation and beyond. The meeting also welcomed addresses from its sister regional organisations (ACAO, AFCAC, LACAC), other ICAO States (Israel, United Arab Emirates, United States) and international organisations (ITF, TIACA).

The meeting took some formal decisions in relation to ECAC’s principal officer appointments, work programme and budget for the next three years. It renewed the appointment of Ms Ingrid Cherfils (Deputy Director General, Transport Agency, Sweden) as ECAC President, and elected Mr Patrick Gandil (Director General of Civil Aviation, France), Mr Alessio Quaranta (Director General of Civil Aviation, Italy) and Ms Silvia Gehrer (Director General of Civil Aviation (International), Austria) as ECAC Vice-Presidents. The full membership of ECAC’s executive Coordinating Committee is available below.

At the close of the meeting, Ingrid Cherfils thanked its 170 participants for their contributions to what had proved to be fascinating, sometimes challenging, discussions, on which all would wish to reflect as ideas now began to be pulled together for specific proposals and positions to be taken to the next ICAO Assembly.

The full list of moderators, panellist and presenters who contributed during the 36th Session is available HERE.

ECAC Coordinating Committee members appointed by the ECAC 36th Plenary Session:

For President of ECAC:

• Ms Ingrid Cherfils (Sweden)

For Vice-President of ECAC:

• Mr Patrick Gandil (France)
• Mr Alessio Quaranta (Italy)
• Ms Silvia Gehrer (Austria)

For membership of the Coordinating Committee:

• Mr Pekka Henttu (Finland)
• Mr Dragan Djurovic (Montenegro)
• Mr Rob Huyser (Netherlands)
• Mr Mario Nemeth (Slovakia)
• Mr Raúl Medina Caballero (Spain)
• Mr Dan Micklethwaite (United Kingdom)

Mr Bahri Kesici (Turkey)