Facilitation

Facilitating the travel of passengers and goods is a key objective ECAC's activities in the field of facilitation, which is itself one of the three strategic priorities of ECAC and is closely linked to aviation security. ECAC's activities focus on immigration, cargo and the handling of persons with reduced mobility, in each of which areas ECAC endeavours to provide policy guidelines and good practices to its Member States. ECAC's facilitation work is conducted in close cooperation with other authorities such as the European Commission, ICAO and EASA. ECAC also actively contributes to the discussions at ICAO, particularly by providing practical proposals for amending Annex 9 during ICAO FAL Panel meetings.

ECAC's Focal Point for Facilitation is Frank Durinckx, Director General for Civil Aviation in Belgium

Lead responsibility for Facilitation within the ECAC Secretariat lies with Olivier Ardouin

Structure

The Working Group on Facilitation, chaired by Fofi Papadimitropoulou (Greece), is composed not only of delegates and observers from all civil aviation sectors, including users, but also of customs, immigration, security and public health specialists. A close relationship is maintained with the European Commission, which has a particular interest in view of Community competency in certain matters such as customs and persons with reduced mobility. The activities of the Working Group are supported by three sub-groups:

The Sub-Group on Immigration: this group is chaired by Paulus Bouma (Netherlands) and focuses on the monitoring of biometric initiatives, the development of guidance on the use of PNR, and iAPI.
The Sub-Group on Cargo: chaired by Ed Broekma (Netherlands), the 2010 work programme of this group includes the monitoring of e-freight initiatives, and a review of differences between the Customs Authorised Economic Operator and the aviation security regulated agent/known consignor/account consignor authorisations.
The Sub-Group on Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRMs): this group, which is chaired by Ann Frye (United Kingdom), is presently developing a series of initiatives to achieve consistency in policy and in the application of measures among National Enforcement Bodies (e.g. with regard to complaints, and denied boarding cases), promoting the training of staff handling PRMs, developing a fair mechanism to evaluate the implementation of Doc 30 provisions on PRMs, and monitoring the impact of security procedures on PRMs.