Panama City, Panama (October 30, 2018) - Today, at the ALTA Airline Leaders Forum, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) and the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at improving operational efficiency and enhancing safety in Latin America and Caribbean aviation through active cooperation between airlines and air navigation service providers (ANSPs), increasing the understanding of each other's roles and practices, and exchanging information.

Speaking at the ALTA Airline Leaders Forum in Panama City, CANSO Director General, Jeff Poole, said: "Increasing air transport demand is boosting economies in the region, and it is vital that air traffic management, airlines and airports cooperate closely to manage this growth safely and efficiently. Airlines and ANSPs in Latin America and the Caribbean are already working well together on implementing performance-based navigation, collaborative decision-making, air traffic flow management (ATFM) and other measures to improve the efficiency and capacity of airspace. This new agreement will further cement that relationship and establish a firm framework for increased cooperation and understanding."

Luis Felipe de Oliveira, Executive Director of ALTA said: "Safety is ALTA's number one priority. We strongly believe that aviation is the great engine for the economic and social development of the region, and for this reason, we continue partnering with institutions such as CANSO to ensure we offer those we serve the safest and most efficient means of transportation, while we boost other economic sectors that bring prosperity to the region. This agreement will allow us to join efforts in identifying areas of improvement and dedicating our resources to develop solutions throughout the entire industry."

To enhance safety, the agreement includes: joint participation in regional initiatives to achieve agreed safety targets; identification of operational issues impacting safety; and the use of visits to air traffic control facilities, simulators and familiarization flights to enhance mutual understanding between pilots and air traffic controllers.

This agreement will also allow both organizations to work jointly and more effectively within the regional safety initiatives of the Pan American Safety Summit to achieve the safety targets established by the Regional Aviation Safety Group - Pan America (RASG-PA). The main target will be to reduce fatality risk for Part 121 or equivalent operations by 50 percent by 2020 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

To improve operational efficiency, the agreement includes: workshops on collaborative decision-making to reduce delays; training on air traffic flow management (ATFM) to ensure available airspace capacity is used efficiency; and cooperation to safely accommodate drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the region's airspace.

With regard to exchanging information, the agreement promotes the CANSO ATFM Data Exchange Network for the Americas (CADENA). This champions the use of ATFM in the region and enables ANSPs and other aviation stakeholders to share operational information through the CADENA Operational Information System (OIS) web page and a weekly operational web conference to discuss and agree traffic flow.

CANSO Director General Jeff Poole and ALTA Executive Director Luis Felipe de Oliveira sign Memorandum of Understanding at ALTA Airline Leaders Forum focused on cooperation to enhance safety and improve efficiency in Latin American and Caribbean aviation