D-8 Organization has just successfully held the D-8 Meeting of Airline Companies, and D-8 Meeting Directors General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Authorities in Antalya, Turkey, on 26-28 November 2010. The meeting which cater discussions and exchange of views on the Status of the potencies, opportunities, challenges and threats of airlines, training and maintenance organizations  in terms of cooperation within D-8 countries, was participated by official delegation from member countries, as well as private sectors such as Turkish Airlines, Atlasjet, SKY Airlines, MNG Technic, SunExpress, Turkish Technic, Garuda Maintanance Facility, Angkasapura I & II of Indonesia, My Technic, IC Airports, Manavgat Airports, Mahan Airlines, Iran Airlines and others.

In his part, Secretary General D-8, Widi Pratikto said that D-8 activities in Civil Aviation cooperation have proved to be very promising. “With a population of more than 930 million, 14.2% of world population, there is abundance of technical and qualified human resources and opportunities available in this field among D-8 community,” he said. This potential necessitates D-8 to focus attention even more as the organization proceed to consolidate commonalities for the potential on air transportation between the D-8 member countries in the future, such as commercial flights for tourism sector, low-cost carriers for migrant workers, pilgrimage flights for Hajj and Umrah, and cargo for trade flows.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ali Ar?duru, head of Turkey’s Civil Aviation General Directorate, or SHGM, who hold the chairmanship of the D-8 Working Group in Civil Aviation, said that Turkish civil aviation has been showing a constant improvement since the beginning of the 2000s.

“While flights from our two main locations, the international airports in Istanbul and Ankara, were made to 25 destinations at the beginning of the 2000s, today it is possible to fly from seven main locations to 46 destinations.”

Data provided by Ar?duru also reported that while a total of 33 million passengers, domestic and international, flew annually then, this number has increased to 96 million today.

The meeting also witnessed the completion of signing of the D-8 MoU on Civil Aviation by Egypt, and to be followed by Nigeria and Malaysia soon.

With the purpose to bring legal recognition of the D-8 Countries in the field of civil aviation which will contribute to enhance their safety, security and environmental protection level, Dr. Ariduru proposed that D-8 sign a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) with ICAO. “This is because the D-8 countries are already members of ICAO and ICAO has a very positive and strong support to the regional cooperations,” he said in the meeting.

He also said that the common action of the members would provide fruitful collective results for fair and equal profits. This kind of cooperation with ICAO could be strengthened through project production and contribution of all member states in the scope of common understanding.

In response to this proposal, all member countries in principal agreed to realise the signing of MoC with ICAO and TMAG (Turkey-Middle East Aviation Group- Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey). The meeting stated that the final decision will be submitted to D-8 Commission for approval. The meeting also agreed that the Commission may also be requested to authorize the Chairman to sign such subsequent MoCs with other international aviation organizations/groups provided that it has the consensus within the DGCA working group.

The meeting also agreed that the next meeting will be held in Egypt in April or May 2011.