Why regional: The West and the rest in aviation  

21/01/2025

Why Regional: The West and the Rest in Aviation  

“Getting it wrong is mostly not about ignorance or culture. As we will show, poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty.”

Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, winners of 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The CANSO Asia Pacific Operations Workgroup, Safety Workgroup and ATM technology planning meetings were recently held in Hong Kong. Such workgroups, primarily for capacity building, are a regular feature of the region.  Under the ambit of ICAO, there are many more regional activities related to the Regional Air Navigation Plan and the Asia Pacific Seamless ANS Plan.  Additionally, the region also started the Asia Pacific ANSP Committee two years ago. While such activities are commonplace, it begs the question why a regional approach is needed when aviation is inherently global. 

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The concept of regions was first introduced by ICAO way back in 1945. According to ICAO, the reason is “to take a more localised approach to solving the range of problems facing worldwide civil aviation”. Admittedly, there are local differences across regions. At the same time, we need to recognise the reality that aviation as we know it was shaped by Europe and the US which have continued to lead its development. This is partly due to the West’s ascendancy over the last few hundred years and its early start in industrialisation. As Niall Ferguson, a renowned historian, says: “The West has patently enjoyed a real and sustained edge over the Rest for most of the previous 500 years.” Notably, the gap is not getting smaller. According to The Economist article in September 2024, the per capita GDP difference between the developing and developed countries has not got smaller in the last ten years. Likewise in aviation, the gap is real. 

So, the regional divide is not just geographic but reflects the level of development. Perhaps, the reason for a regional approach is that a more homogenous group is more suited to help one another level up. However, this seems unconvincing since the Asia Pacific is far from homogenous. It is not evident that the more advanced States within the region will help their neighbours. It is counterintuitive to leave the regions to their own devices, and hope that the ideal will just happen. Given the gap in aviation development between the West and the Rest, should the West not be more involved in the regions? While the West is not the keeper of the Rest, regional performance has global impact.   

There are exceptions. About 10 years ago, the European Union funded the ASEAN Air Transport Integration Project (AATIP) to support ASEAN in the creation of an aviation single market. AATIP included a package to improve ASEAN’s ATM. This was undertaken by EASA through a consortium with EUROCONTROL, UK CAA and DGCA of France.  They remain as exceptions. 

Perhaps, there is a more valid reason for a regional approach – to facilitate collective actions through regional institutions. Despite its imperfections, no one will deny that Europe functions as an aviation region. The European approach to ATFM through EUROCONTROL Network Manager is well known. AIM in Europe is centrally provided by GroupEAD which maintains a centralised AIS database for the region. Significantly, ATM research and development is consolidated through SESAR Joint Undertaking and Deployment Manager. For many of the Europe-wide solutions produced by the industry, there are region-level establishments coordinating and even mandating their implementation. 

The Asia Pacific has none of what Europe has for regional aviation. If Europe represents the West, the difference between the West and the Rest in aviation is epitomised by their institutions. The difference in performance is only the end result of right choices. There is potential for the Asia Pacific to align individual self-interests to realise collective benefits. This would be a topic of interest to future Asia Pacific Ministerial Conferences. 

The quote at the beginning came from Acemoglu and Robinson who did seminal work demonstrating the importance of inclusive institutions for economic development. There are parallels here for the regions to consider institutions for collective actions. Unlike ad hoc efforts, formal establishments provide clarity of purpose, accountability, and sustained actions. Institutions explicitly formalise behavioural expectations of all participants. For instance, individual ANSPs can have their local solutions for ATFM, but this should co-exist with regional optimisation solutions which can be done virtually with oversight by a supervisory body. ATFM will not be the only function that requires a region-wide institutionalised collective approach to achieve better outcomes. The same applies to information management, data analytics, performance tracking, contingency coordination, airspace capacity modelling. 

A region is defined by its institutions for collective actions. Perhaps, the Asia Pacific’s real regional approach has barely started. 

Asia-Pacific