Joint Work

AACO Aeropolitical Watch Group (AWG) gathers aeropolitical experts from AACO member airlines. The mission of this group is to follow up on the various regulatory affairs affecting the Arab airlines, advocate in favor of the joint interests of AACO members, provide awareness through AACO to the members on Aeropolitical affairs, and suggest solutions wherever applicable.

AACO AVSEC Advisory Group gathers the heads of aviation security of AACO member airlines. The mission of the group is to contribute to enhancing members' operational safety through formulating a mechanism to share information related to risk assessments of air routes that members conduct. In addition, the group is a platform to exchange expertise and best practices among members.

Membership in AACO AVSEC Advisory Group is open to all member airlines.

Air Algerie, Air Arabia, Air Cairo, Egyptair, Emirates, Etihad Airways, FlyEgypt, flydubai, flynas, Gulf Air, Jordan Aviation, Kuwait Airways, Middle East Airlines, Nile Air, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, Saudia and Yemen Airways.

The objective of the project is to maintain and enhance the quality of services delivered to member airlines at outstations, as well as improving the contractual terms with various service providers. The project is managed by the Ground Handling Steering Board which gathers annually in order to share experiences and best practices, follow up on issues that might affect the operations of the airlines such as the pandemic’s impact resulting in shortage of ground staff that were cut which is causing flights’ disruptions as well as the importance of ensuring high quality of handling services at outstations.

The current Joint Ground Handling Agreements are in Istanbul and 20 other Turkish airports. The Board is constantly working on expanding the project to cover more outstations as well.  

The Steering Board also concluded an agreement on a database for airport fees and is in the process of concluding another that includes more than 2,000 stations for cases of emergency landing, and on exploring the possibility of concluding other agreements at new outstations.

Afriqiyah Airways, Air Algerie, Air Cairo, EgyptAir, Etihad Airways, Flyegypt, Gulf Air, Kuwait Airways, Libyan Airlines, Middle East Airlines, Nile Air, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, Saudia, Sudan Airways, Syrian  Airlines, Tunisair and Yemen Airways.

• Develop, maintain and be the custodian of “AACO Emergency Response Mutual Assistance Agreement”; a multilateral agreement for emergency response support amongst the project carriers.
• Assess, plan, develop and implement a roadmap aiming at enhancing crisis management preparedness in the region.
• Be a platform to exchange information, developments, experience and best practices among members.

Digital Transformation was identified as one of the top priorities for AACO and based on that AACO Executive Committee mandated the establishment of the Digital Transformation Task Force (DTTF) with the objective of exploring innovative solutions that would provide better and enhance the customer relationships management, empower the airlines’ channels and define the roadmap for the offer and order vision of IATA and what airlines need to do and transition from the current centralized, quasi-monopolistic environment, to a decentralized and modular one.

Scope of Work
• Offer & Order Management
• Digital Identity
• Payment and Settlement

The scope of the Task Force is not limited to exploring innovative solutions related to the above three key areas; it is rather open to all innovations that fit the purpose of the roadmap, such as new generation revenue management, artificially intelligent data analytics tools, NDC aggregators and others.

Benefits
Seamless customer experience, dynamic relationship with customers, secured and encrypted data, innovation, decentralization, advanced payment methods and wider variety of channels, fast settlement, payment cost reduction, optimal pricing decisions, business sustainability.

The Task Force gathers information technology, commercial, and sales experts from the following 22 member airlines:

Afriqiyah Airways, Air Arabia, Badr Airlines, EgyptAir, Etihad Airways, flydubai, flyegypt, flynas, Gulf Air, Iraqi Airways, Kuwait Airways, Mauritania, Middle East Airlines, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, Saudia, Syrian Airlines, Tarco Aviation, Tunisair, and Yemen Airways.

In addition, two partner airlines are members of the Task Force namely; Pegasus Airlines, and Turkish Airlines.

As part of its goal and objectives, AACO has been successful in providing a platform for member airlines to collaborate individually with global distribution systems to distribute their content and extend their sales presence globally since the 1990s.

In 2018, AACO succeeded in defining a comprehensive vision for the distribution landscape through a framework that allowed airlines that contracted Amadeus to benefit from its extensive presence in each of the airlines' home market, while Amadeus benefited from further strengthening its presence in each of the member airlines' home markets and meeting market needs while bringing customer-oriented distribution technology to the market.

The AACO Amadeus Steering Board was founded to support airlines' distribution visions and to reaffirm their commitment to travel agencies, as well as to achieve economies of scale and technology efficiency, including increased merchandising and retailing capabilities.

High market share, strong market presence, innovative functionalities, wider network coverage, and better customer service.

AACO MRO Collaboration project gathers thirteen member airlines. The feasibility of the project was assessed using the services of a consultancy firm which concluded that such collaboration would result in significant benefits in cost saving and resource optimization through nine initiatives: Line maintenance, procurement, inventory sharing/pooling, spare engines and APUs, work exchange/shared shops, GE90 engine shipping, loans and exchanges, training and vendor audits.

• Quantitative benefits: reducing cost through leveraging economies of scale and negotiating better contractual terms. 
• Qualitative benefits: optimizing resources such as budgets (training, vendor audits) and staff productivity, harmonization of standards. 

The Environmental Policy Group was established in 2008, and gathers Environmental Directors from 29 member airlines.

Objective:

• To follow up on all regulatory, political, and technical developments related to aviation and the environment on both global and regional levels and to advocate the interests of Arab airlines across all regional and international stake-holders. 
• To follow up on environmental developments affecting the Arab airlines, advocate their interests, exchange environmental information, provide environmental awareness, and provide cost effective solutions that would help AACO members in facing the environmental challenges.

ICAO and its member States agreed in 2013  on a road-map to finalize work on the Global Market Based Measure and put in place the structure and design element of the global scheme for the assembly of 2016 to review, discuss and possibly adopt the global deal. And upon the recommendation of AACO Executive Committee, the Environmental Policy Group followed up on the environmental developments related to defining the structure and design element of the global scheme, in addition to following up on ICAO’s work and the outcome of the High Level Meetings which were held in order to come up with an agreeable scheme that galvanized the support of all states.

And after 6 years of intensive work from ICAO and its working groups, member States, stakeholders, and international and regional associations, including the Arab Air Carriers’ Organization (AACO), and during its Assembly which was held in Montreal from 27 September to 7 October 2016, ICAO and its member States finalized an agreement for a Global Offsetting Scheme for International Aviation known as CORSIA.

Modus Operandi: 
On the Regional level: 

• To cooperate with Arab Civil Aviation Organization (ACAO) and Civil Aviation Authorities in the Arab world to have a coordinated Arab position which reflects the interests of Arab Airlines and the agreement of Arab States with regards to aviation and the environment.
  
  

On the International level:

• To follow up on ICAO’s work on establishing the necessary mechanisms for implementation of the CORSIA 2020.
• To work with the concerned Arab authorities and to coordinate with IATA and other regional and international entities, and the Arab Civil Aviation Organization (ACAO) to ensure that the mechanisms will not add further burdens on the Arab airlines.
• To work with all stakeholders to try to develop a methodology that would recognize efficiencies achieved by airlines prior to 2020 known as the Early Movers.
• To follow up on the developments related to the EU-ETS and advocate with the European Commission that the issue of aviation and the environment must be dealt with through the provisions and principles of the ICAO resolution which identified the guiding principles for design and implementation of the global MBM to tackle the environmental impact of air transport.

Afriqiyah Airways, Air Cairo, Air Algerie, Air Arabia, Badr Airlines, EgyptAir, Emirates, Etihad Airways, flydubai, flynas, Gulf Air, Iraqi Airways, Jordan Aviation, Kuwait Airways, Libyan Airlines, Middle East Airlines, Nile Air, Nouvelair, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, Saudia, Syrian Airlines, Sudan Airways, Tassili Airlines, Tarco Aviation, Tunisair and Yemen Airways.

AACO has established the Fuel Project which comprises the Fuel Steering Board (FSB) and the Aviation Fuel Advisory Group (AFAG). The FSB gathers 28 member airlines. Moreover, a large number of fuel companies work within AFAG to spread awareness and ensure a safe and sustainable aviation fuel industry in the world in general and in the Arab world in particular.

The Fuel Project consists of AACO member airlines in the Fuel Steering Board; and AACO member airlines and fuel companies in the Aviation Fuel Advisory Group.

AACO established its regional training center in Amman in 1996 to provide management training for AACO members, the mission statement is "to offer cost effective quality training", and this today still stands true.

AACO Regional Training Center has its branch in Cairo inside EGYPTAIR Training Center hosted by EGYPTAIR.

In 2005 our scope was broadened to include other types of training from the basic training and soft skills, and in 2007 further broadened to include academic educational programs to provide quality training of higher value to educate airline staff on aviation related post graduate programs.

To provide the training needed by AACO member Airlines by focusing on management training, and offering some basic training courses especially those related to international auditing programs as IOSA and ISAGO. Providing the soft skills needed to raise the capability of the airlines employees, and to offer academic programs related to aviation.

One of AACO RTC main focus is to contribute in developing human resources for member Airlines by organizing training programs for preparing and developing trainers in different aviation topics.

The AACO Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Task Force was established following a decision by AACO Executive Committee on 29 July 2021.

The deployment of sustainable aviation fuel is one the four pillars for achieving aviation’s decarbonization goals. Governments of the world are placing a high priority on dealing with the effects of Climate Change. Aviation stakeholders are requested through various measures to mitigate their carbon footprint. Particular focus is being placed on SAF with more governments considering SAF blending mandates. The rapid regulatory and technological developments regarding SAF resulted in forming the dedicated task force under AACO umbrella.

The Task Force conducts its work within the following framework:
•    Conduct on regular basis webinars, seminars, workshops, conference calls, or other events that raise awareness on all SAF-related issues.
•    Coordinate with AACO’s Environmental Policy Group and Aeropolitical Watch Group on policy issues related to SAF.
•    Engage in industry advocacy campaigns that protect the interests of member airlines.
•    Develop action plans as agreed by the Task Force.