ACI Asia-Pacific Provides Recommendations for Airport Pandemic Resilience at ICAO Middle East CAPSCA Meeting

The ICAO joint Europe and Middle East 10th meeting of the Collaborative Arrangement for the Prevention and Management of Public Health Events in Civil Aviation (CAPSCA EUR-MID/10) was held from 14-15 February 2023 in Bahrain.

Hosted by Bahrain Airport Company, in collaboration with the Civil Aviation Authority of Bahrain, the meeting was attended by over 60 medical and civil aviation professionals from States and industry associations from both the European and Middle East regions.

ACI Asia-Pacific provided an overview of ACI’s initiatives in public health introduced over the past three years, such as the Airport Health Accreditation (AHA) programme and its health-related guidance documents, aimed at helping airports to better implement ICAO recommended health measures during the pandemic.

A number of recommendations that could help airports enhance their preparedness for future health crises were also put forward at the meeting, including the introduction of universally accepted digital health credentials and to adopt a balanced approach when implementing additional health measures at airports, if required, to minimise unnecessary interference on operations.

Established in 2006, CAPSCA is a programme managed by ICAO that brings together stakeholders from the civil aviation sector and public health sector to improve preparedness planning and response to public health events that affect civil aviation. With COVID-19, CAPSCA EUR-MID has become even more important in serving as a regional platform to facilitate the timely exchange of information on public health responses.

A number of lessons learnt from COVID-19 were shared during the three-day meeting, such as the various control measures taken by the aviation ecosystem to prevent the spread of the virus and their impact on aviation, economies and societies in general.