Exclusive Interview: ICAO Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar

Juan Carlos Salazar was appointed ICAO Secretary General in August 2021, to a three-year term, and is now on a second three-year term. He is a Colombian and a former director general at Aerocivil, the aeronautical civil authority of Colombia. He’s also a former president of the Latin American Civil Aviation Commission and has held director posts at the Colombian Ministry of Transport and the former Tampa Cargo, now Avianca Cargo. He will head ICAO’s 42nd Assembly in Montreal in September. In this interview, edited from an exclusive mid-June podcast exchange (before the crash of an Air India 787 and the US bombing of Iranian nuclear development sites), Salazar spoke about his determination to continue raising the industry’s safety bar, to harmonize the system for new entrants and technologies, and to harness funding and emerging country capabilities with the goal of making commercial aviation carbon net zero.

What are your and ICAO’s priorities and focus areas and what are the main challenges? Our organization is linked to the aspiration of having a system that makes sure there are no fatalities out of safety near-misses or safety concerns. In the case of air traffic control systems, we want those to be seamless and to allow an ever-growing number of new entrants to utilize the same airspace while making sure that the services that are provided are seamless, reliable, and allow everyone utilizing the airspace to benefit.

One of the challenges that we are seeing increasingly in the work of ICAO are the crises and restrictions that come out of conflicts that are emerging in different parts of the world, unfortunately. That is certainly a preoccupation for this organization. How can we act as a neutral, high-crisis coordination platform? As a specialized agency, we are neutral among different actors, but we can bring stakeholders together. We help create frameworks for crisis preparedness. We help create frameworks for the structural response and for strength and collaboration among the states, the industry and other international organizations.

We also continue to work in the development of comprehensive safety standards. Safety is critical and necessary for any civil aviation activity. And that is the core mandate that this organization received over 80 years ago and that was created by the International Convention on International Civil Aviation, known as the Chicago Convention.

When there is a crash or other crisis, what specifically is ICAO’s role? ICAO is doing a lot of work among its member states. There is the Safer Skies Initiative that was embraced by our member states at the last assembly to demonstrate how ICAO can ensure that tragedies that unfortunately have to be faced and which affect international civil aviation are not repeated. 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 is based on the lessons that we learned from the tragedies. And I want to highlight the importance of Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention, the annex on accident investigation. One of the biggest, strongest, more powerful tools we have is in drawing lessons from tragedies that occur in the system. I cannot highlight enough the importance of that work.

How do you see the global air transport system changing and what does that mean for ICAO? This is a central focus of our long-term vision and work because we see a civil aviation system that will continue to grow. We see triple the number of passengers and two-and-a-half times the volume of cargo, not only by the traditional actors but by new actors and new entrants such as advanced air mobility, autonomous vehicles and commercial space. All will utilize the same airspace. From ICAO’s perspective, we are working first to develop inclusive standards that take into account the views, the challenges, the perspectives of advanced air mobility. The focus of our interactions is on harmonization. How can we bring harmonization to this new sector?

We are also working to identify new technology solutions that will help us to leapfrog, and which should be available around the world, not just in a few regions.

Finally, we are working to have integrated operational frameworks. ICAO is developing new operational concepts that integrate unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and electric vertical takeoff and landing systems with existing traffic management systems. This includes frameworks for UAS traffic management and vertiport infrastructures.

What do you expect to be the main goals of the ICAO 42nd Assembly in Montreal in September? We will approach this assembly with a very strong vision for the future. We will present our member states and the international aviation community our 2026-2050 strategic plan that defines ICAO’s vision for the next 25 or so years for a safe, secure, sustainable and inclusive aviation system. This long-term ambition is based on the aspirations for zero fatalities and net-zero emissions by 2050. And of course, the aspiration to have a system that is accessible for everyone, everywhere. That no one in the world, no country, is left without the benefits of air transportation.

We will also focus on our safety oversight and security audit programs. And we want to strengthen the resource mobilization for trade and infrastructure developments to make sure that different countries in the world, different actors, truly deliver on these aspirations.

What about aviation sustainability? We will not only reaffirm our long-term global aspirations of net-zero emissions but will establish the mechanisms to bring the capabilities of every country in the world, especially developing countries, and identify ways to accelerate financing of those aspirations towards cleaner energy projects around the world.

Listen to the full interview on the ATW Window Seat podcast: https://bit.ly/ICAOSecGen