ACI Asia-Pacific & Middle East and CANSO sign Memorandum of Cooperation to strengthen regional aviation capacity and resilience

Airports Council International Asia-Pacific & Middle East (ACI APAC & MID) and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation, establishing a formal framework for collaboration between the region’s airport and air traffic management (ATM) communities. 

The partnership aims to ensure that airport and ATM capacity expansion or optimisation and improvements advance in tandem, a strategic importance as the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions prepare for a period of extraordinary growth in air travel.

The agreement was signed, on 13 May, by the President & CEO of CANSO, Simon Hocquard, and Director General of ACI APAC & MID, Stefano Baronci, during the ACI Asia Pacific & Middle East Regional Assembly, Conference & Exhibition (RACE) in Bangkok. 

The MoC commits to assess existing and potential airport and ATM capacities across the region; identify operational and systemic misalignments between airport and ATM development; propose mitigation measures and best practices, including Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM), Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM), and Total Airport Management (TAM); and conduct a regional study to ensure the region’s aviation ecosystem is future-ready.

Stefano Baronci, Director General, ACI Asia-Pacific & Middle East said, "Airports across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East are on the cusp of unprecedented growth. With passenger volumes projected to reach nearly 10 billion in the Asia-Pacific region alone by 2053, driven by an annual growth rate of close to 7% over the next 25 years, there is an urgency to optimise capacity both on ground as well as on air. When we address shared challenges collectively, we deliver better outcomes across the entire aviation ecosystem, and most importantly, for the hundreds of millions of passengers who will depend on our infrastructure every year."

“The Asia-Pacific region is entering a period of extraordinary growth, and airports and air navigation services cannot succeed in isolation. This partnership with ACI establishes the coordination framework essential to ensuring that capacity expansion on the ground and in the skies advance together to meet demand.” commented Simon Hocquard, CANSO President and CEO. 

The MoC also builds on a resolution adopted by the ACI Asia-Pacific & Middle East Regional Assembly in New Delhi in April 2025, through which airport members committed to promoting the optimisation of existing capacity and the development of new infrastructure both on the ground and in the skies.

CANSO’s Air Traffic Flow Management and Collaborative Decision-Making Workgroup has already carried out extensive work on improving how these two areas work together, including the recent development of a performance framework for Airport Collaborative Decision Making.  ACI Asia-Pacific and Middle East will help strengthen this work and allow it to be tested and refined through closer cooperation.

Another area for future collaboration is to jointly assess airport and airspace capacity across the region to meet future demand. When traffic grows faster than capacity, it can lead to delays and missed opportunities. While capacity is often assessed by individual organisations, there is a clear need for a coordinated regional approach that considers how airports and airspace interact. At present, there is no shared regional exchange that brings airports and air navigation service providers together in this way.