Buyer Beware: Just because it says it is an ICAO document, doesn’t mean it is

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Aviation safety is at the core of ICAO’s fundamental Objectives. We are continuously striving, in close collaboration with the entire air transport community, to further improve aviation’s successful safety performance while maintaining a high level of capacity and efficiency.

On 7 December 1944, 52 States signed the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention). Three years later the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) became the UN specialized agency that manages the administration and governance of the Chicago Convention. It is ICAO’s mission to promote co-operation between States and to ensure that international civil aviation is developed in a safe and orderly manner.

We monitor safety trends and indicators and we have sophisticated tools that collect and analyze vast arrays of data that allow us to identify existing and emerging risks. We develop global strategies and we implement targeted programmes that address safety and infrastructure deficiencies.

Among our many activities, we strive to implement practical and achievable measures to improve safety and efficiencies in all sectors of the air transportation system. It is because of this approach that we can ensure aviation’s complimentary achievements in a safe and efficient network that serves a fundamental role in sporting global social and economic priorities.

We were able to achieve this by developing and maintaining Standards, Recommended Practices and Procedures that are contained in 19 Annexes and 6 Procedures for Air Navigation Services (PANS). We complement these Standards with hundreds of 42 manuals and circulars that provide guidance on their implementation.

When we produce SARPs and PANS and other guidance material, we follow a structured, transparent and multi-staged process. This work involves a number of technical and non-technical review bodies that are composed of State and industry subject matter experts. When these experts have submitted their recommendations, they are assessed and transmitted to the States and industry for review. Only when all relevant feedback and fine-tuning has taken place are they presented to ICAO’s Council for ultimate consideration.

While it is one of our key priorities to ensure we disseminate all of this intelligence to States and stakeholders around the world, we know the importance of ensuring that the information that is shared is authentic.

There are illegitimate publishers who take advantage of our guidance and reuse our material for their own work, building on and redistributing recommendations and guidelines that may not be accurate, up-to-date or legally valid. It happens around the world in every industry. But in our role, in this industry, we have to ensure the civil aviation sector is safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable and environmentally responsible.

Always ensure that you are buying legitimate, authentic ICAO documents by visiting this website. We do have authorized resellers who are helping us support our strategic objectives. These are resellers we have established relationships with, based on common goals and responsibilities.

For information on the process of becoming an ICAO partner in reselling official ICAO Annexes, Standards And Recommended Practices (SARPS), Documents and other publications, click here.

Copyright Notice: All ICAO publications are protected by copyright. Requests for permission to reproduce parts of ICAO publications should be addressed to copyright@icao.int