scope:

Foreword

2020 was an exceptional year for international civil aviation.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced unprecedented contractions on global connectivity, most especially pertaining to passenger movements. This led to catastrophic financial implications for many airline and airport operators, millions of lost jobs, and thousands of shuttered businesses in light of aviation's profound significance to travel, tourism, and many other areas of core economic activity.

The air cargo sector was much more resilient to these effects, mainly as it was so heavily relied upon, even amidst the direst of lockdown scenarios, to continue moving perishable foods, medical supplies, and other key essentials quickly and reliably to where the world needed them most.

These pandemic traffic and economic impacts, and a great deal more, are captured and reviewed in this newest edition of the ICAO World Civil Aviation Report (WCAR).

This year's edition also details the extensive actions undertaken by the ICAO Secretariat and Council to help countries respond to and initiate their pandemic recovery strategies, cooperating through ICAO regional coordination mechanisms using global and local roadmaps to achieve the most effective and harmonized international response possible.

Given the importance of air travel to so many of humanity's most fundamental collective aspirations, and to every global citizen's global mobility and quality of life, government and aviation leaders have a great responsibility upon them today to ensure that civil aviation learns and 'builds back better' from COVID-19.

How we do that will require a higher reliance on innovation going forward, and a section of this year's WCAR accordingly places its focus on Innovation and Technology in the context of sustainable development goal (SDG) attainment, healthy airports, and latest developments in the Integrated Communication, Navigation and Surveillance Spectrum project.