Listen in as ATW's Karen Walker sits down with ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar to talk about the organization's work, focus areas and his message for the Paris Air Show.
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Transcript
Karen Walker: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Window Seat, our Aviation Week Network Air Transport podcast. I'm ATW and Group Air Transport Editor-in-Chief, Karen Walker. Welcome on board. Now this week I am truly delighted and honored to have as our guest Mr. Juan Carlos Salazar, the Secretary General of the International Civil Aviation Organization, or as we all know it, ICAO. Mr. Secretary General, welcome and thank you for joining us today.
Juan Carlos Sal...: Thank you very much, Karen, for this wonderful opportunity to address your followers.
Karen Walker: You're very kind. Now, Mr. Salazar became Secretary General in August 2021, serving a three-year term at the Montreal based organization. He began a second three-year term in August 2024. ICAO and its 193 member states develop and implement global aviation strategies and standards. It's a very important organization that links those states with important aspects of the global air transport industry, including of course things like safety and sustainability.
Mr. Salazar is a Colombian and a former director general at Aerocivil, the aeronautical civil of Colombia. He's also a former president of the Latin American Civil Aviation Commission, and he has held director posts at the Colombian Ministry of Transport and what was Tampa Cargo, now is Avianca Cargo. If all that immense experience in aviation were not impressive enough he also holds advanced degrees from Harvard and McGill Universities and he speaks English, Spanish, French and Arabic. Secretary General, wow, that is an incredible resume. And sadly I can only converse in English for you, but your English is very excellent, so I think we'll be fine. But again, thank you for joining us.
Juan Carlos Sal...: Muchas gracias.
Karen Walker: At least I understood that. Thank you. Now this is, as I said, your second term as Secretary General. And a lot has happened to the industry and, of course, in the world, to the world in that time. Can we start maybe by you just talking a little about your top priorities and why ICAO is important?
Juan Carlos Sal...: When I joined in 2021, international air traffic was at a virtual standstill. And at that time it seemed that the major task that would take us a long journey to achieve it was the recovery of international air transportation system, the international air connectivity, and at that time ICAO through the Council Aviation Recovery Task Force had set a roadmap to recovery.
And so when I joined in 2021, the biggest challenge seems to be the recovery of international air connectivity and the international civil aviation system as we know it. And it was remarkable to see how the industry, the different stakeholders working with ICAO and the leadership at the organization had very quickly reactivated international air connectivity.
Then as we look forward as an organization, we saw that safety and security again took the preeminence that it has had internationally. And so the reaffirmed priority for the civil aviation system is safety and security, as you mentioned. In terms of our new long-term strategy is zero fatalities arising from accidents or acts of unlawful interference in aviation and sustainability. And sustainability, sustainability is another priority that is clearly we're seeing the focus of the civil aviation system and the work of the ICAO as an organization. We want aviation to be net-zero emissions by the year 2050, which is quite another bold objective that we are pursuing. And for that we have a basket of measures that we can further discuss later on.
But finally, another challenge that we see as emerging, especially after the effects, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and all the talent that this sector lost and the perspectives that we have of, again, quick growth in international civil aviation is how we are going to bring the workforce of the future, how we are going to attract the talent pools that we need so that every aspect of this sector counts with the brilliant professionals and the workforce of the future that will bring all the benefits that civil aviation brings to countries and to communities around the world.
Karen Walker: So yes, the ICAO is critical in that it can bring all these things together. And as you say, obviously the COVID pandemic was a terrible thing for people, for the industry, but if you're going to look at one of the bright sides was just how much people came together and quite a remarkable achievement by the industry. You mentioned safety and of course, that's a top priority for the industry, a top priority for ICAO. It's also a very big topic.
So if we now look at, as you said, looking to the future, looking to the now and where the industry is going, we've seen growing concerns about air traffic control system reliability and capacity, and of course some airspace restrictions because of wars. Can you talk a little about ICAO's role in those type of things?
Juan Carlos Sal...: Well, this aspect that you have highlighted of the importance of safety in the case of the work of our organization is linked to the aspiration to have on the one side a system that make sure that there are no fatalities coming from safety misses or safety concerns and from accidents more precisely. So that's a good aspiration that we have. And on the other side, you were mentioning the air traffic control system. And in the case of the air traffic control systems, well, we want the systems that is seamless, that allows that the many actors in an ever-growing number of new entrants that are utilizing the same airspace, still we make sure that the services that are provided are seamless, are reliable, and allows everyone that is utilizing the airspace to benefit from that.
One of the challenges that we are seeing increasingly in the work of ICAO is the different crises and the restrictions that comes out of the conflicts that are emerging, popping up in different parts of the world, unfortunately. And that is certainly a preoccupation that this organization in its different distances is having. How can we act as a neutral high-crisis coordination platform? As a specialized agency, we are neutral among different actors. We can bring stakeholders together. We help creating frameworks for crisis preparedness. We help creating frameworks for the structural response and the strength and collaboration among the states, the industry and other international organizations.
On the other side, we also continue to work in the development of comprehensive safety standards. Safety is critical is a condition necessary for any civil aviation activity to be conducted. And that is the core mandate that this organization received over 80 years ago that was created by the International Convention on International Civil Aviation, the Chicago Convention. But also in conflict zones ICAO is doing a lot of work among the member states. There is what we call the Safer Skies Initiative that was embraced by our member states at the last assembly in order to demonstrate how ICAO can ensure that these tragedies that unfortunately have faced and have affected international civil aviation are not repeated.
And in that regard, we develop comprehensive guidance. We put in service risk assessment tools and implementation packages and capacity building tools to support our member states. All this if you want, Karen, is based on the lessons that we learned from the tragedies. And here I want to highlight the importance that Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention, the Annex on accident investigation has for the civil aviation system. One of the biggest, strongest, more powerful tools that we have is the lessons that we draw from the tragedies that occur to the system. So that I cannot highlight enough the importance of that work also around the annexes that are prepared by ICAO.
Karen Walker: Absolutely, very well said because I think this is something that the industry can pride itself on. Things happen. Nobody wants it to happen, but the important thing is to learn from that and to share that information. And ICAO is the conduit for that. Can I just also ask you, airspace is increasingly occupied by operators and technology that are wholly outside of ICAO core operations as we know them. But how does ICAO respond to that challenge and ensure that this new ecosystem, if you like, is responding to the challenge and ensuring that its standard settings work?
Juan Carlos Sal...: That is a central focus of our long-term vision and work because we foresee a civil aviation system that will continue to grow. We see triple the number of passengers, two and a half times the number of cargo, but not only by the traditional actors but by new actors, new entrants we call in our long-term strategy, advanced air mobility, autonomous vehicles, commercial space, transportation, all of them utilizing the same, occupying the same airspace and new technologies that are coming here.
From the perspective of our organization, we work first to develop inclusive standards. Standards that take into account the views, the challenges, the perspectives of advanced air mobility. In that regard, we have the study groups that are contributing to the work of the Air Navigation Commission, which is the highest technical body of the organization. We also undertake more and more work with the advanced air mobility community. The organization is very active and conducted an event that attracted high attention from this new actors. And the focus of our interactions is on harmonization. How can we bring harmonization to this new sector?
On the other side, we work to identify the solutions that will help us to leapfrog. And in that regard, those solutions should take into account that the benefits of these new technologies should be really available around the world. We see it, for example, that these growth in passengers in cargo is going to happen, especially in emerging economies. And so for us, there is a lot to gain to these new entrants if we are able to make these technologies available everywhere in the world and not only in a few regions. And so that's the holistic approach that we always trying to take as an intergovernmental international organization.
And finally, we work also to have integrated operational frameworks. So in this regard, ICAO is developing new operational concepts that integrate UAS and eVTOL with the existing mail traffic management. We also work in frameworks for UAS traffic management, for Vertiport infrastructures. We develop standards for digital services and automation. And we are working as one of the core focus of the interaction between the different stakeholders on increasing the cybersecurity for these new technologies that are available.
Karen Walker: And all very important aspects of the global air transport industry. And of course, you've really just emphasized a point there just how it's still always changing and evolving and these things have to be, as you say, harmonized at a global level. Not easy to do. ICAO has its 42nd assembly coming up in Montreal at the end of September. What do you expect to be the main goals of that meeting? You did mention sustainability earlier on. I'm sure that's part of the agenda. What are the main expectations for that agenda this year?
Juan Carlos Sal...: We are approaching this assembly with a very strong vision for the future. We are presenting to all of our member states and international aviation community, the 2026, 2050 strategic plan that defines the ICAO's vision for the next 25 or so years for a safe, secure, sustainable and inclusive aviation system. And this long term ambition is based in aspirations. I have mentioned the aspirations of zero fatalities. I have mentioned the aspiration of net zero emissions by 2050. And of course, I have mentioned the aspiration of having a system that is accessible for everyone, everywhere. That no one in the world, no country will be left without accessing the benefits of air transportation.
And so in that regard, it's a framework that give us the assurances that the civil aviation community is willing to take the challenges that this rapid growth that we are seeing is going to deliver more and more benefits for the decades to come. Besides the long-term strategic plan, ambition and ambitions that we have I should say that we have also the focus on our safety oversight and security audit programs. We also want to work to strengthening the resource mobilization for trading, for infrastructure developments to make sure that different countries in the world, different actors will truly deliver on these aspirations that make the basis of our long-term vision.
And more importantly the work towards the sustainability aspirations of the civil aviation sector. So not only reaffirming these long-term global aspirations of net zero emissions, but also to establish the mechanisms to bring the capacity of every country in the world, especially developing countries and even identify ways to accelerate financing in these aspirations, for example, towards the feasibility of cleaner energy projects around the world.
So we have established initiatives like the Finvest Hub at ICAO that seeks to facilitate access to blended finance mechanisms and the risking mechanisms so that we see sustainable aviation fuels projects coming up in other regions in the world. Always in the work of ICAO is very central. The promotion of our international air law system, the different treaties that makes the body of international law, air law are going to be very central also to our conversations on our member states.
Karen Walker: Interesting because essentially what you've just said is that, and this is again, the importance of ICAO, sustainability is lack safety, it's got to be global, it's got to be everybody involved. And so that's a very important message. As we speak there's another big aviation event about to happen around the corner, the Paris Air Show. And of course that will bring in industry and airlines and everybody that's connected to that industry. I understand that you are going. Can you just share maybe a key message that you'll be taking to that event?
Juan Carlos Sal...: We will be discussing not only with the authorities because we will have directors of civil aviation meeting in parallel during that week, but also with the civil aviation industry that is very much present in the Paris Show on how to work to mobilize efforts. Will from industry and regulators, leaders will towards moving the needle from the ideas to the concrete action plans on these aspirations. How we can further work on safety and security, which is a core, core objective of everyone who works in this sector. How we move the needle towards sustainability and make really the progress that we expect on the vision, for example, that we have for cleaner energy, we want to reduce CO2 emissions by 5% by 2030.
So that's a very concrete aspiration and a huge challenge that we have to make aviation more sustainable. And how can we work with industry and with government stakeholders on practical support programs? So I have mentioned the Finvest Hub initiative on facilitating access to financing for cleaner energy, but also we have our assistance capacity building and training programs that bring both parties that can provide support and parties that are in need of support so that we accelerate the implementation of these both ambitions that we have both in programs like CORSIA or in programs related to sustainable aviation fields.
Karen Walker: Excellent. So yeah, it's about it's having both. And it's the idea and the vision, but also the practical, the action as well. So excellent. You've had such an amazing career today that is clearly, you're clearly passionate about the aviation industry and really know it. Can I just ask you, what do you enjoy most about being Secretary General?
Juan Carlos Sal...: That is a wonderful question, Karen. How many hours do we have? The passion that I feel about the civil aviation work is that I found an area for professional development where very quickly you move from ideas or plans to concrete impact and in particular economic development. And how you bring benefits to communities, to countries. And that is something that never stops amazing me.
I was very worried during the pandemic. And during the pandemic I think I suffered greatly, even physically suffered greatly of seeing how this system that was so matured and doing so many important things in regions and to communities all of a sudden was in danger of disappearing. And in that regard, coming to ICAO in the role of Secretary General, being part of the tremendous effort across the world made by governments, made by the industry leaders, by the thought leaders like yourself in order to very rapidly recover the civil aviation system around the world and the benefits that it brings.
And not only that, but making the system better so it's coming back but built in a better manner. That has been completely amazing. And I can talk honestly hours about what I have learned in that journey as one of the persons that did working in that direction. And more concretely in the case of ICAO as an organization, it has been so rewarding to work hand-in-hand with the professionals that I most respect and I have met for years, for decades.
And I can only have even more respect now as a Secretary General, because with their leadership we are working to transform ICAO into an organization that is more service-oriented, closer to work with other stakeholders to deliver the benefits of aviation in a more rapid manner. So we are truly making this organization a better fit for serving the global aviation community in the incredible opportunities that we are seeing in this system that bring us rapid technological developments, these net zero ambitions that with net zero emissions ambitions that is making us to reinvent the whole civil aviation system as we know it today.
So these are extraordinary moments to be in this role. And I can only be thankful and recognize the fantastic work that leaders like yourself and other leaders in the sector are making in order to make this industry each day better and respond to the challenges and opportunities.
Karen Walker: You're very gracious and certainly it is incredible. ICAO and the industry is very lucky to have you and to have all the energy and passion that you do for the industry. It's obviously very genuine. I will say the power of the air transport industry is something amazing. As you say, it's what it achieves for people. The planes are incredible, but it's the people that are truly amazing and the people whose lives it changes.
So thank you so much, Secretary General, for... I know your time is very busy and so therefore, providing some to us today, we are truly honored. Thank you very much indeed. And I do wish you a good trip to the Paris Air Show. I hope maybe we can briefly see each other there or maybe at the assembly itself. So thank you very much.
Juan Carlos Sal...: I look forward to see you in the Paris Air Show and at the Assembly, both of them. Thank you very much, Karen.
Karen Walker: Let's count on that. Thank you. Thank you also to our producers, Andrea Copley-Smith, Cory Hitt, and Guy Ferneyhough. And of course, a huge thank you to our listeners. Make sure you don't miss any episode of Window Seat by subscribing to Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to us. This is Karen Walker disembarking from Window Seat.
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