ICAO striving to maintain momentum of change established by watershed conference

摘要

The worldwide conference on air transport liberalization held at ICAO headquarters in March 2003 will likely be remembered as the decisive moment in the annals of regulatory change. It would have come as no surprise if the 5th Worldwide Air Transport Conference (ATConf/5) held in Montreal last March had ended in failure or at best irrelevancy, for its timing coincided with great global shocks ― the conflict in Iraq had just begun, and the ramifications of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic were starting to be felt. And yet the conference not only attracted some 800 delegates and observers from around the world, it managed to satisfy a full spectrum of interests. Its goal was to address the "challenges and opportunities of liberalization" and to discuss how the liberalization agenda might be advanced in a practical fashion.