The Sustainabilist | AVIATION
shape the policies relevant to our trade body, in order to promote and defend the members’ common interests. Each member is invited to join these working groups to share its own expertise and ensure that the resulting documents, manuals, campaign, or position papers serve them. We work to address and influence regulations and other agendas, an example of which is the European Commission’s directive on banning single-use plastics as well as the Covid-19 pandemic. Is there interest from Middle Eastern catering services to become members of the ACA? Yes, as a matter of fact, one of the Founding Members is dnata, a very-well known Middle Eastern entity in the UAE. 7
We are also currently discussing with a few others, including, for instance, Saudi Airlines Catering. As an organisation, they have been quite open about their interest in joining in. What regulatory initiatives have been produced to address the health and safety of the industry’s stakeholders in response to the pandemic? The WHO was quick to disclose that there is no evidence to prove that Covid-19 is transmitted through food. Notwithstanding this, passengers were apprehensive of this and so airlines came to us asking for something that would reassure passengers with respect to how their food is being produced and packaged. At the same
time, airlines were struggling due to the slump in air traffic. For these reasons, we created a Covid-19 task force, considering the lower demands, to ensure business continuity for the international traffic that remained and develop a manual in compliance with the different regulations relevant across the world. This was a complex initiative as we had to develop a document based on local risk assessments, which would be scalable by the beneficiaries, according to the epidemiology of the disease and the corresponding regulations applied in different countries. Overall, I know that the work we did was extremely useful, especially judging from the interest its release has generated amongst the community. I think it is
