96 SA Flyer

Although general

aviation is facing

tough times

worldwide,

enthusiasm shown

at this year’s IAOPA

World Assembly

suggests general

AOPA is the afliation organisation of

AOPA bodies in 76 countries around

the world, and it has permanent

representation at ICAO, the

organisation which sets the aviation

all contracting countries – which is

pretty much everyone in the world.

ICAO’s purpose is to facilitate international

civil aviation, and AOPA through IAOPA

has access to this process in representing

Organisation, which is a part of the United

Nations.

AOPA (without any extension) is the

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of

the United States which was formed way

back in 1939.

follow the convention of naming themselves

as AOPA followed by the country name – as

in AOPA-South Africa, which was formed

IAOPA is the International Council

of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations,

established in 1964 for the purpose of

dealing with global GA issues and providing

an interface for GA with ICAO.

The setup is a little confusing, and it

was agreed at our 28th World Assembly in

Chicago two days before writing this article

that there will be a thorough worldwide

re-branding in order to clarify the various

organisations, who they are and what their

Stellenbosch, South Africa, and before that

It has been decided that the 2018 Word

Assembly will be held in New Zealand.

This year we had an unprecedented

number of very important and very

participative speakers: Dr Feng Liu, the

Secretary-General of ICAO; the Honourable

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); Mr

Patrick Ky, Chief Executive of the European

Aviation Safety Administration (EASA);

as well as other major aviation decision-

It should be mentioned that there were

also impressive persons such as Steve

Creamer, Director of Air Navigation at