Aerospace CEOs Discuss Joint Approach to Environment, Air Traffic Management, and Other Key Issues

PARIS, June 21, 2011 − Industry leaders from the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) and the Aerospace Industries Association of America (AIA) reaffirmed their commitment to cooperate on a wide variety of issues during an annual meeting at the 2011 Paris Airshow.

“Aircraft manufacturers are very serious about reducing aviation’s environmental impacts,” Jim Albaugh, Chairman of the Board of Governors of AIA and President and Chief Executive Officer, Boeing Commercial Airplanes said. “We’ve made remarkable progress on sustainable aviation biofuels and we’re working with regulators on a first-ever CO₂ efficiency standard for new production aircraft.”

AIA and ASD vowed to support ICAO’s efforts towards reducing civil aviation CO₂ emissions 50 percent compared to 2005 levels by the year 2050. They affirmed the primacy of such global approaches vs. regional or national market based measures. In support of ongoing collaboration with the global stakeholder community (airlines, airports, and air navigation service providers), both American and European manufacturers agreed to ensure understanding among regulators of how critical CO₂ reduction will be.

Commercially viable, drop-in biofuels will KK make a large role in CO₂ reduction and both groups are working towards that goal with their respective members. “To develop the use of biofuels in aviation, our industry and public authorities need to work hand in hand,” Domingo Urena-Raso, President of ASD and CEO of Airbus Military declared. “Incentives should be granted to scale up production, infrastructures and programmes, and to encourage the use of biofuels by airlines. We also need to increase our investment in research and development in this field,” he added.

Another issue discussed during the CEO Dialogue was air traffic management (ATM) interoperability and modernization. Participants in the meeting agreed that greater efforts and resources from governments would greatly contribute to the achievement of these goals and would yield considerable environmental, economic and efficiency benefits.

(Adapted from: http://thesantosrepublic.com/2011/06/aerospace-ceos-discuss-

joint-approach-to-environment-air-traffic-management and-other-key-issues/)