Important to all Procedure designers - 4

28.10.2004

Submission:

Earlier this year I noticed that ICAO was selling PANS-OPS software for procedure design that was written and developed by a Canadian software company based just outside Montreal.

I have always understood that ICAO is a non-partisan organisation who would apply an even-handed and fair approach to purchasing and promotional activity. So when I attempted to contact ICAO through the webmaster to clarify the situation and enquire if they would consider adding other recognised and commercially available procedure design software to the web site, I was amazed at their defensive attitude. Despite many emails to ICAO staff I barely got a response, and when I did get a reply, information regarding the choice and joint promotion of the Canadian software product was withheld.

I was surprised to find this information so hard to obtain! I then tried another route into ICAO, this time getting at least some answers in a matter of days! It emerges that ICAO and this commercial supplier got together to create the software! It seems that what is effectively a private deal was struck to jointly develop and promote/market the software. The only way to order this commercial software is to go through ICAO. Of course this raises as many questions as it answers and I sought some further clarification. But ICAO will not answer my request for further details.

I was aggrieved that other international software firms were not informed about this issue and at the very least invited to tender for the project to create this software. I am not aware of any other procedure design software developer groups being invited either.

So how did ICAO decide on this Canadian software company? Will ICAO continue and develop more software by this "closed loop" method and continue to exclude other commercial suppliers? Should ICAO be exempt from the norms of international trading practices observed by other such international organisations?


Dawson Bunn
ASD Ltd (PDtoolKit) - UK