The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) published an addendum to the Protocol on Air Safety on Wednesday 11 January.
This addendum provides guidelines to the competent authorities in the Member States to operationalise the measures agreed by the parties to the EU Integrated Political Crisis Response arrangements (IPCR), as agreed at the meeting of 4 January for a coordinated European approach to the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infections in China (see EUROPE 13092/1).
The addendum contains detailed recommendations for the attention of national competent authorities, aircraft and airport operators, ground handlers, their crew members and personnel.
The recommended measures are aimed at flights between China and the European Union. These are non-pharmaceutical measures to reduce the risk of geographical spread of potential new variants, to reduce the likelihood of transmission of the virus during air travel and to help detect potential new variants of SARS-CoV-2 circulating in China for early warning, to collect information on variants already circulating and to collect information on infection levels.
The ECDC and EASA guidelines were developed in consultation with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), national aviation and public health authorities, airlines and airports, and aircraft manufacturers. The authors of these recommendations have taken into account the need to not introduce delays in flight schedules and not compromise flight safety.
The guidelines shall apply with immediate effect. The period of applicability of the addendum is temporary and should be aligned with the assessment of the epidemiological situation by the ECDC and the World Health Organization (WHO).
More info: https://aeur.eu/f/4uh (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)