ACCO President Hussein explains how the Arab carriers deal with industry concerns on both regional and international stages Since the last Cairo-hosted ACCO summit in 2000, many crises had shaken the air transport industry, but could not slow down Arab aviation abilities to grow bigger. "In 2009, AACO member airline fleets consisting of 800 aircraft, transferred 106 million passengers, compared to 40 million passengers in 2000. This show how the Arab air transport business continued to grow in spite of the troubling times the industry had all over the world," AACO President Hussein and chairman and CEO of the national carrier EgyptAir, told Al-Ahram Weekly. expressed satisfaction with the AGM activities and outputs, though there is more to expect in the future. "The Cairo summit marked one of the largest gatherings in the history of the AACO, where 24 member airlines attended, in addition to representatives from 49 leading companies who are partners with the AACO," explained . "The Arab League, regional and international associations and industry experts participated to the meeting," he added. According to , since the last AGM held in Jeddah, AACO has managed the workflow under the scope of a new vision and mission. "We worked to initiate and implement specific, measurable and relevant targets aiming to serve the Arab airlines, represent their common interest and boost cooperation among them." He indicated that a cooperation project between the Arab airlines for the joint management and acquisition of spare parts had been decided by the member airlines. emphasised the importance of such an attitude to shed light on the issues facing the air transport industry. "The AACO has succeeded in launching and managing the joint purchase of fuel, joint cooperation at outstations, joint distribution agreement with Amadeus and joint technical cooperation." The national carrier EgyptAir signed two joint agreements with both the AACO and IATA for training, under which the AACO and IATA will use EgyptAir facilities for their training programmes in the Middle East. Climate change was on top of the summit agenda to handle the latest developments impacting the business of Arab airlines. "Whereas the Kyoto Protocol states that the parties included in Annex I shall pursue limitation or reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases from aviation through the ICAO, none of the Arab states are listed in Annex I. On the other hand, ICAO earlier recognised the special circumstances of airlines in developing nations, whereby they were exempted from noise restrictions for seven years." added that Arab airlines were committed to the initial scope of the principles of the ICAO 37th Assembly Resolution on Climate Change. "We also see a strong need to respond to the requirements and needs of developing nations' airlines in unison. Thus, all developing countries should be treated equally as per the Kyoto protocol. We do not support the "de minimis" exemption concept for Market Based Measures based on a state's share of global international aviation RTKs, because it differentiates in the treatment to developing nations." highlighted the importance to recognise past and future investments of airlines in reducing their carbon footprint when designing and implementing market-based measures to deal with aviation's impact on climate change.
