ICAO partners with IATA and CANSO for online runway safety training course

With its new Global Reporting Format for Runway Surface Conditions (GRF) coming into effect in November 2021, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has agreed to partner with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) on a new joint GRF training programme.

The new online course has been specifically designed for air traffic controllers and aeronautical information service staff, and will be available for enrolment in April 2021 on the ICAO Global Aviation Training website. It compliments existing courses that were developed in cooperation with Airports Council International (ACI) World for airport operations staff, and with IATA for flight crews.

“Runway safety continues to remain aviation’s biggest safety challenge, representing more than half of all accidents reported to ICAO for commercial operations,” emphasised ICAO’s Secretary General, Dr. Fang Liu. “We have been collaborating in recent years on numerous initiatives to reduce runway safety-related accidents and incidents worldwide, and the hard work undertaken to forge international consensus on the new GRF, in addition to this new collaborative training course supporting it, should help to deliver substantial runway safety performance improvements.”

The ICAO GRF will be effective as of 4 November 2021, and establishes a new methodology for assessing and reporting runway surface conditions to improve take-off and landing performance. The new agreement is the first of its kind between the three international organisations, and sets the stage for future collaboration on global safety enhancement initiatives.