The traveller is king at Riyadh

“Airports Council International (ACI), the trade association of the world’s airports, is a federated organisation comprising ACI World, ACI Africa, ACI Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, ACI EUROPE, ACI Latin America and the Caribbean and ACI North America. In representing the best interests of airports during key phases of policy development, ACI makes a significant contribution toward ensuring a global air transport system that is safe, secure, efficient, and environmentally sustainable. As of May 2024, ACI serves 814 members, operating 2110 airports in 169 countries,” is a statement that appears boldly on the website of ACI.

At its World Annual General Assembly, which was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ACI airport members unanimously adopted three foundational Resolutions aimed at ensuring a safe and sustainable aviation system as demand for air travel continues to increase. These Resolutions are aimed at giving the best service to travellers and ensuring that all in the industry value chain work collaboratively towards ensuring that aviation continues to deliver value across the globe.

In its press release of May 22, 2024 the ACI quotes the director general and chief executive officer as saying:  “Global passenger traffic is poised to soar, with projections nearing 20 billion by 2042, doubling the estimates for 2024. Safely and sustainably accommodating this exponential growth necessitates collaboration across the entire aviation system, including governments. Together, we must ensure sufficient capacity, maintain safety and security, and meet aviation’s net-zero targets. The unanimous adoption of the Resolutions demonstrates the commitment from the world’s airports for sustainable growth, and we thank ACI members for providing a strong collective response. Collaboration is not just essential; it’s the only way forward.”

Three resolutions: Safety and security at airports as fundamental enablers of sustainable growth, enabling system capacity at airports to meet future growth, and, aviation decarbonisation and airport climate action.

Safety and security as fundamental enablers of sustainable growth calls on all member airports to continue striving for the highest levels of safety and security; to offer mutual assistance and collaboration initiatives, such as exchanges and secondment programmes, with the objective of capacity building for airports and regions in need; to continue to support the work of the World and Regional Safety and Security Committees by providing experts to participate actively in such committees. It also urges airports and Civil Aviation Authorities to actively collaborate with a view to increase the number of certified aerodromes globally, and, among others, urges member airports to continue to support the ACI APEX programmes, through actions such as making available experts to participate in the peer reviews.

Enabling system capacity at airports to meet future growth calls on member airports and aviation ecosystem stakeholders to seek all possible opportunities for collaboration for best use of system capacity and, on airports to consider repurposing existing facilities and materials and to ensure new facilities incorporate sustainability and circular life cycle considerations. It also encourages airports to enhance resilience and to plan for additional surge capacity to manage crises and emergencies that could threaten continued safe operations, and also encourages airport operators, air operators and air navigation service providers, to pursue collaborative efforts for the best use of aviation system capacity through policy, operational, and technical improvements among others.

Aviation decarbonisation and airport climate action reaffirms ACI’s  previous Resolutions related to climate mitigation, climate adaptation, sustainability and ESG. It recommits to the Net Zero Goal, in full alignment with the Paris Agreement, recognises the role of airports in the SAF value chain and the many initiatives implemented at airports for the facilitation of SAF infrastructure, increase in the use of SAF and in taking the lead in stimulating the adoption of SAF, and, among others, reminds airports of the urgency to build climate adaptation and resilience into their strategies and to prepare for more frequent extreme weather events, taking a risk management approach.

Airports the world over and particularly in Africa, will now look at their strategic plans and evaluate how far they should go with respect to these resolutions. In all, they are intended to make travel by air sustainable and reinforce the fact that the customer, and indeed the traveller by air at the airport is king. 

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