Talk:International Civil Aviation Organization

Dr. Albert Roper, first Secretary-General PICAO-ICAO, 1944-1951
It would be a shame to neglect writing biographical entry for this gentleman whose work was instrumental in the early efforts of international civil aviation cooperation. There is a ICAO News Release under the year 1969 on the matter along with photographic records (with permission to distribute freely for non-commercial purposes subject to source being credited) on the ICAO website, in addition to a short ICAO biography. Anyone willing and able to commit the time and energy? Thanks. (Weirpwoer (talk) 11:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC))

Pronounciation
Is it pronounced EYE-COW or EYE-KAY-O? Jigen III 05:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As far as I am aware, no international standard is promulgated. I should mention that ICK-KAY-O is also a common pronunciation. treesmill 12:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Passports
The ICAO is also responsible for defining the standards and formats for passports, including biometric passports. This is not mentioned in this article.

Can anybody explain why the ICAO is responsible for passports? This seems perverse to me. Why should an organisation responsible for one form of transport, decide on a document which is required by international travellers using all forms of transport (aircraft, car, bus, train, ferry, on foot)? TiffaF 09:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

This ICAO entry needs major work. It barely scratches the surface of what ICAO is all about.

About your passport question. One of the ICAO annexes is called Facilitation. Its goal is to standardize the documents required for aircraft and their contents to travel from one country to another. If each country required a different kind of document from travellers, travel would be hell. The ICAO Facilitation Annexe standardized passports, general declarations, passenger manifest, cargo manifests, what these documents should contain, what they should look like etc. It also strandardized documents such as aircraft registrations, aircraft airworthines certificates, pilot licences (the document) medical certificates etcHudicourt 06:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your explanation. Yes, if passports where no standardised it would cause confusion (and also Identity documents, which can also be used for international travel). My problem is why should the body responsible for air travel do this, when passports are used for all methods of crossing borders? There would be an equal argument to give the job to the UN railway standards committee, or any other body. Also, a passport is not a commercial document, but a legal document (like a Birth certificate). The prime user is not the transport company, but the immigration / emigration services. TiffaF 07:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The answer is probably that the United Nations has been given the task of standardizing passports, and it has been delegated to an appropriate UN organisation, and the ICAO was selected. There is no UN Railway organisation. There are different UN committies for economy in Europe, Asia, Africa, that also handles road and railway transport, but no such global organisation. Of course the ISO could have done it also, but now the ICAO does it.-- 217.208.214.39 (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

First ICAO Regional Seminar on MRTDs, Biometrics and Security Standards
There is an upcoming Seminar on the matter of MRTDs, etc. See http://www.icao.int/mrtdseminar/2009/ for details. To be held at Abuja, Nigerial, 6 th to 8 th April, 2009 - in coöperation with UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate. (Weirpwoer (talk) 11:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)).

One-One-One or One-Eleven?
Is the flight number 111 really pronounced one-one-one on the radio? Or is it one-eleven? It seems obvious that the latter one eliminates confusion! HkCaGu 00:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, what policy says is one thing, and what people actually do is another thing. I'm not sure if the ICAO has a policy on this, but the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) apparently has a standard that says flight numbers and other serial numbers should be pronounced as individual digits.  Look for FAA Order 7110.10 Flight Services, Chapter 14.  "Phraseology", Section 14-1-13 "Number Usage". I can't find this document in the FAA's web site, but Atlas Aviation has a page that claims to have the same content, and that's what I linked to. --Jdlh  | Talk 19:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to stick with standard phraseology, otherwise we look like noobs. I've edited the paragraph. Thank goodness they didn't use flight 555 or 333.

One-eleven for a commercial flight IS the national standard in the USA, not a preference or deviation from it. Private aircraft read their tail numbers by digit, and altitudes etc are spoken by digit, but commerical aircraft are identified "in group form." The above cited only 14-1-13, but the relevant chapter is 14-1-15. http://www.atlasaviation.com/AviationLibrary/phraseology/Phraseology_Chap14-17.htm#14-1-15 I don't know what practice is in the rest of the world; we ought to be citing an ICAO document not an FAA document, for the international practice. TaigaBridge (talk) 16:28, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * FAA ORDER JO 7110.10T - Effective February 14, 2008, includes Change-1 effective July 31, 2008 and Change-2 effective March 12, 2009, Paragraph 14-1-5 "ICAO PHONETICS" with table 14-1-1 refers.


 * In practice, and you take this with the caveat that it is my experience and thus is subjective, in both the United States and in the United Kingdom the preference for saying numbers such as "111" or "222" is "one-eleven" or "two-twenty-two," especially so in US airspace. I'd like to say the preference, acknowledging the practice deviates from the international and national standards, is purely one in the interest of expediency, but the actual pronunciation time for both versions is roughly the same. What is saved, however, is the trouble of having to repeat oneself, or to pay particular attention to language (in the case of "one-one-one") which, while familiar on a technical level, is overall clumsy and unfamiliar in the grand scheme of ones experience with language. Take the words as individual blocks, which they obviously are, and consider the scenario where there are multiple flights with similar flight numbers: Flight# 1115, 1151, 5111, 111, 1111, etc. Comparing both versions (ie, individual digits -v- groups) it is, in my opinion, safer and less ambiguous to deviate from the international ICAO standard - "Delta fifty-one eleven" is less likely to erroneously reply to a call from air traffic control to "Delta eleven-fifteen."


 * In short, the practice of standard phraseology should be adhered to unless a clearly less ambiguous method is conventional. There is an unspoken communication between air traffic controllers and pilots in certain terminal areas where non-standard phraseology works very well. If an air traffic controller is dealing with a foreign national whose English appears to be shy of some degree of fluency, it may prove overall more effective to use the standard phraseology. It is not a perfect system, and I daresay it might be possible to attribute causal factors in certain aircraft accidents or incidents to the adherence to standard phraseology in certain instances when more suitable deviants, as illustrated above, may have existed... certainly a subject for careful debate. (Weirpwoer (talk) 12:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC))


 * Of interest, a EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre publication published September 2008:

 Task Load Generated by Frequent Sector Changes for Aircrews and Controllers: State-of-the-Art Literature Study EEC Note No. 07/08 (EEC Note No. 07/08), page 3.

Link to PDF document (Eurocontrol.int website)

Chapter 2 - Controller-Pilot Communications

[...]

The language used is a highly formalised code defined by ICAO norms; an operative standard phraseology based on the English language (a technical jargon) and defined by specific messages, sequences, formats, terminology and pronunciation rules (Federal Aviation Administration [FAA], 2000). The phraseology has been elaborated in order to possibly reduce ambiguities and misunderstandings, to allow strict control over message length and structure in order to shorten the length of communications and to reduce frequency occupancy.

In reality, such measures unfortunately, result in a cumbersome system with substantial channel occupancy times associated with even the simplest messages. As a result, frequency congestion has become a factor that severely constrains the capacity of the airspace. In fact, radiotelephony communication between pilots and controllers, and thus frequency congestion, is one of the major problems in ATC (NASA-ASRS 1994), also because of the ever-increasing amount of air traffic.

In particular, pilots may encounter difficulties interacting with ATC during approach. The traffic around airports and the limited range of available frequencies leads to a shortage of frequencies. For these reasons, time pressure does not help the pilot not flying (PNF) to correctly initiate communication. The message must be as short as possible to avoid masking other messages or being masked by other messages.

Air-ground communication is in many respects the weak link of the system, with many accidents attributed to improper or misunderstood communications (Morrow and al., 1993; Nolan, 1999; Prinzo, 1996; Prinzo and Britton, 1993).

[...]

© European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation EUROCONTROL 2007

This document is published by EUROCONTROL in the interest of the exchange of information. It may be copied in whole or in part providing that the copyright notice and disclaimer are included. The information contained in this document may not be modified without prior written permission from EUROCONTROL.

EUROCONTROL makes no warranty, either implied or express, for the information contained in this document, neither does it assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of this information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Weirpwoer (talk • contribs) 12:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

(Weirpwoer (talk) 12:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC))

Philippe Rochat
I'm new to creating disambiguation pages on Wikipedia but one should be necessary to avoid Ph. Rochat(OACI secretary) to be linked with a Swiss chef ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.54.144.229 (talk) 13:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Good catch! I renamed the link in this article to read Philippe Rochat (aviation), and I put a link to this article under the surname Rochat.  I didn't make a Philippe Rochat (disambiguation) article, though perhaps someone will do so eventually. --Jdlh  | Talk 06:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Korean?
Is there a special reason that the Korean name is included along with the usuall UN languages? 71.65.93.36 (talk) 00:14, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Removed. HkCaGu (talk) 16:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I've removed the non-English languages from the Infobox title, as it looks awful. As there is no previous discussion here allowing this, I'eve removed them per WP:BRD. Is there a guideline requiring that the 5 official UN languaes be used in UN-related infoboxes? I certainly hope not, because this is very cumbersome. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 22:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Official languages
The article 1970 links here with the sentence: The Soviet Union enters the ICAO, making Russian the fourth official language of the organization. However, there is no mention anywhere about this fact (or why there are five now). Senator2029 &#124; talk &#124; contributions 12:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

File:Flag of ICAO.svg Nominated for Deletion
I made a change on, but am not familiar at all with the Wikimedia Commons nomination for deletion process. Will somebody else who knows these things better take a look? Thanks. Senator2029 &#124; talk &#124; contribs 14:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

'United Nations' is a name
'United Nations' is a name, not a description. 'International Business Machines' is another example of a name (as opposed to a description). The expression 'the United Nations' is therefore confused language, like it also would be mistaken to refer to IBM as 'the International Business Machines'.

It would improve the language of this article if United Nations were properly referred to by using its name as just that, a name. That is to say one should refer to UN as simply 'United Nations', and avoid referring to it as 'the United Nations'. Of course this also applies to 'International Civil Aviation Organization' (a name, not a description). --62.16.186.44 (talk) 03:03, 28 December 2014 (UTC)


 * It is worth noting that un.org uses the phrase "the United Nations"; so while it is a name, it is a name that takes a definite article. Likewise, the first mention of the organization's name in the about page at icao.int is "The International Civil Aviation Organization", formatted just as shown at left. On second reference, the organization just calls itself "ICAO", whereas un.org uses "the UN".


 * So, spelled out at least, it looks like "the" should still be there. —C.Fred (talk) 13:26, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on International Civil Aviation Organization. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150323225722/http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article40710 to http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article40710

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 10:11, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:01, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on International Civil Aviation Organization. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131210131909/http://www.icao.int/safety/SafetyManagement/Pages/Annex-19%2C-1st-Edition---Executive-summary.aspx to http://www.icao.int/safety/SafetyManagement/Pages/Annex-19,-1st-Edition---Executive-summary.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100416174212/http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc/atc0204.html to https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/ATpubs/ATC/atc0204.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 23:09, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Raise class?
This article seems okay. Should it be raised to Class C or B? I'm Caker18 ! I edit Wikipedia sparingly. (talk) 02:24, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Blocking Twitter users during 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
I have added news on ICAO's blocking of Twitter users. Source: https://www.axios.com/as-virus-spreads-un-agency-blocks-critics-taiwan-policy-on-twitter-e8a8bce6-f31a-4f41-89e0-77d919109887.html – NirvanaTodayt@lk 21:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

ICAO "patterns"
There are mentions of ICAO "patterns" (e.g. "ICAO pattern A") in an ANSV accident report. They apparently refer to a standard for markings on taxiways, etc. Can someone provide info on these, perhaps a separate article (lots of graphics)? BMJ-pdx (talk) 15:41, 8 October 2022 (UTC)