The Environment

Business and personal disposable income is increasing in the Asia Pacific region as it leads the rest of the world in economic growth rates. With such prosperity and a population of over 2 billion, the increasing demand for goods and services is immense. The Far East members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum share in this prosperity. A realistic expectation of a higher standard of living is higher civil aviation safety and service standards. These conditions are generating large increases in air travel and cargo shipments which in turn require massive amounts of resources for all elements of the civil aviation system, including highly skilled specialists and acquisition of modern aircraft, navigation systems and associated infrastructure.

During 1980-1995, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in real terms increased at an annual average of 4.4 per cent for the Asia Pacific and 2.6 per cent for North America (part of APEC), compared with 2.5 per cent for the world. A GDP growth of 3.1 per cent in 1995 for the world rose to 3.8 per cent in 1996, see Chart 1 for trend 1987-1996.
The GDP increase in 1996 over 1995 for Asia at about 8 per cent was more than three times that for industrialized States which was 2.3 per cent.

International tourism receipts which were buoyant at 8 per cent in 1996 over 1995 was consistent with general economic growth. See Chart 2 for trend 1987-1996. Air transportation is a significant contributor to tourist receipts.

An interesting feature of developments in the Asia Pacific (excluding North America) is its significant increase in market share of passengers on scheduled flights and the concomitant decrease in world market share with respect to Europe in particular.

Measured in passenger kilometres, Asia Pacific world market share rose from 16.3 per cent in 1985 to 24.7 per cent 10 years later and is forecast to grow to 33.1 per cent in year 2005. In contrast, Europe's world market share dropped from 31.3 per cent in 1985 to 24.7 per cent in 1995 and is forecast to reduce further to 22.9 per cent in year 2005. Table 1 below illustrates:

Table 1 
Forecasts of Scheduled Passenger Traffic by Region
(region of airline registration, ICAO Contracting States)
 

	Passenger- kilometres (billions)			Average annual growth rate (per cent)		Regional share of world traffic (per cent)
Regions	Actual 1985	Actual 1995	Forecast 2005	1985- 1995	1995- 2005*	1985	1995	2005
Asia/Pacific International Domestic Europe International Domestic North America International Domestic	222 150 72 428 214 214 569 125 444	550 373 174 549 426 122 903 272 631	1,260 870 390 870 735 135 1,310 495 815	9.5 9.5 9.4 2.5 7.1 -5.4 4.7 8.0 3.6	8.5 9.0 8.0 4.5 5.5 1.0 4.0 6.0 2.5	16.3 25.4 9.3 31.3 36.3 27.5 41.6 21.2 57.1	24.7 30.1 17.9 24.7 34.4 12.4 40.5 21.9 64.0	33.1 36.3 27.6 22.9 30.7 9.6 34.4 20.7 57.7
World International Domestic	1,367 590 777	2,228 1,214 987	3,807 2,395 1,412	5.0 7.7 2.4	5.5 7.0 3.5	100.0 100.0 100.0	100.0 100.0 100.0	100.0 100.0 100.0

Another index of importance was the huge increase in the number of passengers on transpacific scheduled services from 6.4 million in 1980 to almost 22 million in 1995 for an annual average growth rate of 8.6 per cent which was more than double that for the world at 3.7 per cent.

The unprecedented prosperity, in a number of APEC member economies, offers opportunity for the re-allocation of resources to provide for improvements urgently necessary to correct safety deficiencies identified by ICAO and a number of States and also to improve civil aviation safety that higher living standards in the economies demand. Governments in a number of APEC member economies have announced a high priority for safety in their public policy statements.

Innovation, technological change and improvements in skills have caused general enhancement of civil aviation safety. Nevertheless, there continues to be justifiable concern about findings, by ICAO and some economies, that civil aviation safety practices are deficient in various parts of the world. A number of factors have led to this situation, including historical realities and lack of adequate resources for such activities as modernization of obsolete civil aviation safety legislation, establishment of effective civil aviation authorities, provision of adequate infrastructure and suitably qualified personnel, and assurance of safety in the maintenance and operation of aircraft and associated infrastructure. Harmonization of civil aviation safety rules among APEC member economies will facilitate this.

The recommendations and observations that follow are steps that should be taken to correct safety deficiencies and to enhance safety in the APEC member economies.