September 29, 2004
Montreal — The international agency that governs civil aviation says last year was the safest in nearly 60 years.
"One measure of our collective success is the safety record achieved in 2003, when the number of accidents involving fatalities on the world's scheduled operations was the lowest since 1945," Assad Kotaite, president of the International Civil Aviation Organization, said Tuesday.
“Even with the quantum leap in the number of flights and passengers over six decades, aviation safety in 2003 was safer than when ICAO was created.”
There were no successful hijackings on international flights and no loss of life on the three domestic hijackings that occurred, he told the opening of the organization's 35th session assembly.
Another official said civil aviation was 100 times safer in 2003 than when the organization was created in 1945. The assessment was based on the number of flights and passengers and the number of passenger-kilometres travelled.
Federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre told the assembly that government has no greater responsibility than protecting citizens from harm.
He said Ottawa has spent nearly $8-billion since 2001, primarily to prevent terrorist attacks.
“We've done our homework,” he later told reporters. “We're doing that now and we're even going to do more in the years to come. And it's been a pretty big bill on Canadian taxpayers.”
Mr. Lapierre said he plans to issue a discussion paper to guide the federal transport committee through a review of the country's open sky policy, including airport governance and rent.
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