Outcome Of ICAN Conference

The 4th ICAO Civil Aviation Negotiations (ICAN) Conference was held last month in Mumbai. During her inaugural speech, the President, Smt Pratibha Devisingh Patil had mentioned that emphasized the importance of aviation in the economic development of countries. She had called for evolving innovative and flexible business modules for enhancing connectivity. She mentioned that governments must continually negotiate new bilateral treaties to allow for and expand access to new and emerging markets for their carriers.
ICAN 2011 attracted high attendance by 64 States and four regional bodies. During the conference, more than 370 bilateral meetings (nearly 600 hours) were held between air service negotiators from all regions of the world which led to the signing of over 120 agreements and arrangements. In so far as India is concerned, talks were held with 37 countries; MoUs/ agreed minutes were signed with 22 countries.
A special Africa session was held on the inaugural day which included participants from the African Union, ICAO, Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Civil Aviation. During the ICAN, India was able to sort out with Kenya the provisions of 5th freedom rights. The provisions of code share/domestic code share were also sorted out with Scandinavian countries, Republic of Korea, Canada, Australia, Finland, Ethiopia and Turkey. New ASAs were initialed with Mozambique, Dominican Republic and Uganda. Model texts of the ASA were handed over to Lao PDR, Botswana and Macedonia with the aim to finalise the ASA as early as possible.
Through ICAN 2011, substantial progress has been made to broaden the framework for increasing the connectivity either through direct services or through code share operations and many issues which were pending clarification were resolved. The event enabled aviation negotiators from different countries to conduct bilateral air services negotiations and consultations at Mumbai.
23/11/11 Press Information Bureau

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Categories: Foreign Nov 2011, Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2011