Kerry Lynch stepped into the role of editor of the&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;monthly magazine in May 2022 after serving with&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;for eight years. She joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in December 2014 as a senior editor covering Washington and business aviation news. She has also served on Convention News teams, including as editor of&nbsp;HAI Convention News. Lynch previously spent 25 years with Aviation Week. During her time there, she reported for and later steered&nbsp;The Weekly of Business Aviation, oversaw business aviation content on the&nbsp;Aviation Week Intelligence Network, served on the&nbsp;Show News&nbsp;staff, and held roles as the Washington columnist for&nbsp;Business &amp; Commercial Aviation&nbsp;and&nbsp;Overhaul &amp; Maintenance&nbsp;monthly magazines. In 2021 she was honored with the National Business Aviation Association Platinum Wing Award for lifetime achievement in journalism and was the 2004 recipient of the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalism Excellence Award. She also has been a recipient of an Aerospace Media Award for business aviation (2022) and NBAA Gold Wing Award (2003, 2024). Lynch graduated from The Ohio State University with a bachelor of arts in journalism.

Editor, AIN monthly magazine

Kerry Lynch

Global safety leaders are stressing the need for collaboration, consistency, and transparency among governments to ensure borders open seamlessly and to convince passengers that not only is it safe to fly, but they will get to their destinations as expected.

 


“Let's be proportionate to the risk, transparent about the measures, and ensure that we continue to allow the general public to have trust and confidence that once they book a flight, they can actually fly,” said Mark Searle, global director of safety for the International Air Transport Association (IATA), during the October 19 to 22&nbsp;Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) International Air Safety Summit panel.

 


Searle expressed concern that the public trust is shaken as people have faced situations where they make travel plans, head to the airport, and then find out that their destination has closed down or imposed quarantines, he said.

 


As borders open, there has to be a “universally accepted solution,” for passengers and operators alike, he said. “I've had so many stories told to me where a crew member has been tested in one state before they go flying [and then are] tested in another state by an evasive method and then quarantined. It is just so disruptive.”

 


The patchwork will only become heightened once&nbsp;governments heighten the application of testing, quarantines, and other health measures,&nbsp;Searle added.

 


Steve Creamer, director of the Air Navigation Bureau for the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and moderator of the FSF panel, agreed, noting an anecdote of someone he knew that went on a trip to a major Middle East hub and ended up having to take four Covid tests and submitting to 24 days of quarantine through the process. “We’re combining and piling all of these things on,” he said.

 


Creamer, however, pointed to the Council on Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART) report as providing a centerpiece for collaboration as the industry tries to manage through that patchwork, Creamer said. A second iteration ICAO expects to release by late October or early November builds on the lessons learned over the past several months, he noted, adding the collaborative development of the document is no easy feat. “It's hard, there are so many stakeholders involved that it's actually a much more difficult Rubik's Cube of collecting a set of decisions that line up,” he said.

 


A crucial element involved in the update will involve improving alliances with public health counterparts&nbsp;“because ultimately we’re not the regulator," added Creamer. "For many of these restrictions, the regulator is your public health [agencies] and border patrol organizations who have to essentially implement what's being provided to them on both sides from public health and from the aviation community.”

 


U.S. FAA associate administrator for aviation safety Ali Bahrami added the situation is complex because while air transportation is interdependent, different destinations grapple with different sets of circumstances. “Practices vary” between locations and “as regulators, we can only do so much.” The aviation community is trying to navigate through the unpredictability of the coronavirus where many agencies have input. “We are operating in a very dynamic environment,” Bahrami said. “Things are changing really fast, and we are basically trying to operate in the intersection between safety and public health.”

 


A key to managing such&nbsp;unpredictability is open&nbsp;communication&nbsp;and the development of bilateral agreements. In addition, the aviation community&nbsp;must collect and share as much data as possible to build a level of confidence, he said.

 


“If there's anything that I've learned over the past seven, eight months is that the more we talk, the more we share information and their best practices, the better off we are in terms of serving the public and also improving the current conditions,” Bahrami said.

 


Tay Tiang Guan, deputy director-general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), said he believes that the international community has “really done well to come together to develop the CART document,” and called that work crucial to assure&nbsp;the traveling public and governments that the end-to-end process of the air transport journey can be safe. The CART document&nbsp;gives states and industry a blueprint that they can follow and implement, he said. But, he added, “that's not the problem.” It comes down fundamentally to the recovery of Covid in different states and the “risk appetite of that country” on willingness to open.

 


For Singapore, he added, it is slowly opening up through various means, including unilateral moves to allow people to enter the country to “air travel bubbles” through agreements with other states that provide for more ease of travel.

 


“When borders close, you really have to do something step by step to open up in a safe manner,” he said. “So, it's the trial and error and step by step. If you don't start, nothing's going to happen.”

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