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ASIA-PACIFIC AIRPORTS MAGAZINE
VIEWPOINT
VIEW FROM THE TOP Director general, Stefano Baronci, reflects on ACI Asia-Pacific's Regional Board meeting and the success of ACI’s Airport Health Accreditation and Airport Carbon Accreditation programmes.
T
he continued devastating impact of the global pandemic means that the world is in a very different place at the beginning of the new decade than it was at the end of the last. From a long stretch of continued prosperity, economic and traffic growth, our hard-hit industry is now desperately trying to regain its footing.
REGIONAL BOARD MEETING
Among its many impacts, the pandemic continues to affect people physically meeting up and attending events. As a result, the autumn meeting of the ACI Asia-Pacific Regional Board was once again held in a virtual format. Our Regional Board president and CEO of Changi Airport Group, Seow Hiang Lee, presided over the meeting, discussing the continued threat of COVID-19 to the airport business and the valuable platform ACI provides for the airport community to come together. In an update on the impact of COVID-19, the findings from a recently conducted member survey showed that travel restrictions have not eased in the region, thus largely constraining international travel. Quarantine remains widespread and PCR testing is proving problematic as at most airports testing capacity remains limited and APA Issue 4, 2020
space in the airport is constrained. Also, the wait time is more than four hours in almost three quarters of airports surveyed! If we look at the traffic statistics, the weekly tracker shows that in mid-November, passenger numbers across our region for the year-to-date were 71% down on the same period in 2019. This is an improvement on the -95% decline we experienced during the absolute low of April 2020, but the slower than expected upturn reinforces the sentiment that aviation faces a long road to recovery. In light of this bleak situation, we continue our collective efforts to advocate for an internationally agreed risk assessment framework and a risk-based, multi-layered approach to tackling COVID-19, including testing. We further maintain that pre-departure, rather than arrival testing, is preferable to ensure the safe movement of passengers who are ready to fly. Testing should also ideally be done off airport premises. The recently-announced agreement between Hong Kong SAR and Singapore regarding the launch of the region’s first air travel bubble (see page 10) is consistent with the approach advocated by ACI. Other states are urged to explore similar options based on the mutual recognition of processes and requirements for a safe passenger journey.
