ICAO

ICAO: International Civil Aviation Organization

Head Quarter: Montreal, CANADA
Established on: April, 1947
Secretary General: Dr. Taieb Cherif
Council President: Mr. Roberto Kobeh Gonzalez
About ICAO:
The International Civil Aviation Organization is a specialized agency of the United
Nations (UN), and is global forum for civil aviation. The ICAO was formally
established on April, 4, 1947. ICAO works to achieve its vision of safe, secure and
sustainable development of civil aviation through co-operation amongst its member
states.
ICAO has a membership of over 130 governments of various countries joined for the
common purpose of promoting civil aviation on a global scale. The head quarter of the
organization is located at Montreal, Canada.
ICAO works to achieve its vision of safe, secure and sustainable development of civil
aviation through co-operation amongst its member states. Over the years, the
organization has achieved great success in various matters relating to civil aviation.

Origin: A convention was organized in Chicago, USA in 1944. The convention

constituted two permanent bodies, out of which one body was ICAO and the other was
IATA. A provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO) functioned from
6 June, 1945 until the formal establishment of ICAO.

Objectives of ICAO:
1. Safety: Enhance global civil aviation safety. It means to ensure the safe and
orderly growth of international civil aviation through out the world.
2. Security: Enhance global civil aviation security.
3. Environment Protection: Minimize the adverse effect of global civil aviation on
the environment.
4. Efficiency: Enhance the efficiency of aviation operations.

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 5. Continuity: Maintain the continuity of aviation operations.
6. Rule of law: Strengthen law governing international civil aviation.
7. Encourage the development of airways, airports, and navigation facilities for
international civil aviation.
8. Encourage the arts of aircraft design and operation for peaceful purpose.

ICAO regional offices:

The ICAO has seven regional offices.

1. Asia & Pacific; Bangkok, Thailand

2. Middle East, Cairo, Egypt
3. Western and central Africa, Dakar, Senegal
4. South America, Lima, Peru
5. North America, Central America, Caribbean, Mexico
6. Eastern and Southern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
7. Europe and North Atlantic, Paris, France

Areas of activity/Services provided by ICAO:

1. Airport and Airline code systems: Like IATA, ICAO also has its own airport
and airline codes systems. ICAO uses 4 letter airport code and 3 letter airline
code.
2. Aircraft type codes: ICAO is also responsible for issuing alpha numeric aircraft
type codes that contains 2-4 characters. Ex. Boeing 747 variants include B741,
B742, and B747 etc.
3. ICAO provides technical assistance to states in developing civil aviation
programme.
4. ICAO provides air transport statistics and prepares studies on aviation
economics.
5. ICAO through its various proposals tries for the reduction of customs,
immigration, public health and other formalities in order to facilitate air
transportation.

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 6. Another function of ICAO is to standardize machine readable passports. A
more recent standard is for biometric passports. These include biometrics to
authenticate the identity of travelers.
7. ICAO also carries investigations of air disasters.
8. ICAO’s environmental committee continues to consider all types of emissions
from international aviation.
9. ICAO organizes conferences and conventions from time to time for its member
states.

Organization of ICAO:
The principle organ of ICAO is an assembly. The assembly consists of all the members of
the organization and is the sovereign body of ICAO. It meets every three years and
reviews in detail about work of organization. It set up policy for next three years.
The organization has a council which comprises 30 states and is elected by Assembly for
a period of three years. The main subsidiary bodies of ICAO includes: Air navigation
commission, Air transport committee, legal committee, environmental committee.