It is important that an established or a new or a soon to be Accountable Manager understands the existence and the development of civil aviation standards and the reasoning behind the regulations that they, as the Accountable Manager, are accountable for.
In this section of the book we shall examine the approach that the political world took to ensure a supported, safe and secure civil aviation industry is established. This includes the formulation and the establishment of internationally accepted procedures and standards for civil aviation operations and aircraft airworthiness specifications. Also, this section of the book shall review the organisation and treaties established to support this standardisation. After this chapter, the Accountable Manager shall have a very detailed understanding of why and how civil aviation is regulated today.
The Chicago Convention and the International Civil Aviation Organization
World War II was coming to an end. As a result of the conflicts in Europe and the Pacific and the need for faster and better aircraft, great advances were made in aeronautics over the five years of the war. Aeronautical science was better understood by aviation scientists. New metals and materials were developed by metallurgists, new aircraft designs were developed by aeronautical engineers and new, more capable engines were developed by mechanical power plant engineers.
Prior to the war, and even more so after the war, entrepreneurs and businessmen saw the aviation industry as a fast developing, potentially very profitable, new industry that would enable businesses to go not only intercity or international but also intercontinental. The pre-war achievements of KLM and Imperial Airways in Europe, Pan American Airways and American Airways in the USA and Aeroflot in Russia, all proved the concept that air transport services could be a profitable and sustainable growth business. Aircraft proved to greatly satisfy the need for freight and cargo to be transported fast and far. The movement of people from city to city and country to country was made much more efficient by the larger, longer-range aircraft. At the end of the war, the aeronautics companies that were focused on developing and building war machines could now get back to the business of developing and building civil aircraft for the new growing civil aviation industry. The scientists and the engineers that were forced to focus their skills on the war effort could now redeploy to the great civil aviation companies that existed prior to the war. The returning aircraft mechanics and pilots from the theatres of Europe and the Pacific were ready to apply their trade in civilian life.
It was 1 November 1944 where the Convention on International Civil Aviation took place at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, USA, later to be known as the Chicago Conference or Chicago Convention. The US Government took the initiative and invited 55 representatives (53 states and two representatives of territories) to come to the US for this post-war convention on international civil aviation. Fifty-two international states were present, including the USA, interested in establishing civil aviation standards for international operations.
On 7 December, the document was signed by all 52 attending states plus the USA hosting state (The Chicago Conference, 1944). On 5 March 1947, the signed Articles of the Convention were ratified by the 26th state; this was the trigger to place the treaty into effect and, hence on 4 April that year, the treaty was validated and put into effect. As a record of the Convention, the host countryās Department of State drafted the āFinal Actā, a document including the āProceedings of the International Civil Aviation Conferenceā, a written account of all the meetings, the working groups, the agreements and the treaties that were deliberated on and the āArticlesā (The Chicago Conference, 1944), the legal items that each state signed contracting to adhere to. These documents became a very important record for the Conference. That same year in October, as a result of the International Civil Aviation Conference, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was formed and became a part of the United Nations as a specialised agency of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Dr Albert Jean FranƧois Roper, a decorated French aviator and dedicated civil aviation advocate, was nominated as the first Secretary-General. In the beginning, Dr Roper was the director general (DG) of the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO) prior to the final ratification by the 26th state of the Chicago Convention, then, subsequently, he became Secretary-General of ICAO on 27 May 1947. Dr. Roper was invited by the Canadian Government to assist it in preparing for the launch meeting of the PICAO to be convened in Canada, Montreal on 15 August 1945. Montreal then became the headquarters for ICAO, along with all the other UN departments.
ICAO was essentially established to define standards for civil aviation. A standard, as defined by the first ICAO Assembly, is:
The Convention identified 96 Articles that were documented as āprinciples and arrangementsā and signed upon by all the present states. The objectives of these Articles were to develop international civil aviation in a safe and orderly manner, to quote the Convention:
The Articles, Annexes and Standards and Recommended Procedures of the Chicago Convention
It is important that an Accountable Manager understands the origins and intentions of civil aviation regulations and is aware of the Annexes and Standards and Recommended Procedures (SARPs) (International Civil Aviation Organisation, 2021).
There were two main documents that were developed as a record of the Chicago Convention: first, the āProceedings of the International Civil Aviation Conferenceā (The Chicago Conference, 1944), which detailed and recorded the minutes of all meetings, working committees, and sub-committees that took place. The second was th...
