Dear fellow airport chaplains,Registration for the IACAC online Conference is open until October 13th.
Learn more about the conference and register now!
We look forward to having you join us for what promises to be an interesting session and a time to share our experiences.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
It is with a mixture of sadness and enthusiasm that I write to you today. Sadness because day after day each one of us is learning about new dramas on airports and the global aviation industry. How many airlines and airport staff have been made redundant these past weeks or will be within the next few months? Specialists are talking about 10 to 25% of budget cut in aviation workforce globally. The tragedy of the pandemic of COVID-19 has become a global economic tragedy that particularly affects the aviation industry. On the whole, airport chaplaincies don’t seem to be too badly affected at least economically but we’ve had some bad news from a few colleagues on that regard: Brussels Airport have decided to stop the financing of both Catholic and Protestant chaplains which puts our colleagues Michel Gailliard and Edwin Delen in a difficult situation although the airport is encouraging them to maintain their presence and ministry if they can. Such news is sadly to be expected in a few places although we’ve had opposite and encouraging news of airports maintaining their strong support for their chaplaincy.
Continue reading “President’s Letter | August/September 2020”As we cannot meet physically this year, the IACAC will be meeting for an online conference on October 20th at 11:00 UTC.
Conference Theme: Challenges of Chaplaincy in the Changing Aviation World
Guest Speakers:
GRACE DAVIE – How faith based groups can respond in crisis situations based on her studies of African health crises
KATHY MALCOLM HALL – Dealing with grief in all its forms – death, job loss, relationship breakdown
GEOFFREY THOMAS – Editor of “Aviation Ratings” magazine on challenges facing the aviation industry into the future.
Continue reading “Online Conference – October 20th, 11:00 UTC”Dear Friends and Colleagues,
In the past few weeks and in the weeks to come many of us have felt the need to connect and share our stories through the COVID-19 crisis and our hopes and challenges for the coming months and years. As have so many people around the world, we have discovered the benefit of online video meetings and Zoom has been a great tool for that.
On 15th June 40 chaplains mainly from Europe but also from the US, Australia and Kenya shared in a 2 hours online meeting. In this time of the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis which dramatically affects the aviation industry and the airports in which we serve, the aims of this meeting organized by airport chaplains in Europe was to support each other, share about our hopes and challenges as well as evaluate the need for closer networks in particular for chaplains who don’t meet regularly.
Continue reading “President’s Letter | June/July 2020”This time of isolation is favorable to reflection and many thinkers around the globe are trying to define the future and share their hopes for the post-Covid-19 world. The environment and new economics paradigms seem to be the main concerns and motivation for many. The aviation industry has been strongly shaken and will take time to recover. But it certainly will.
Catherine Maunoury, twice World Champion in Aerobatics, President of the Aéro-Club de France and lecturer, shares with us the communicative enthusiasm of pioneers, a spirit she believes we are in need of to face our future. “Sixty years only between Louis Blériot’s achievement over the Channel and three accomplishments occurring in 1969: the first flight of a Concorde aircraft; the first flight of a Boeing 747; and the first person to step on the moon! Barely born, aviation was already flying at Olympic velocity: ever faster, ever higher, ever further. […] But a virus abruptly brought our headlong drive to a grinding halt—and possibly our dreams as well. […] From now on, we will never be able to claim again that it is impossible to stop the reigning economy in its tracks, nor its bulimia, nor its insanity. […] Since its inception, aviation has carried the values that we will once again need to confront and shape our future.’’
Continue reading “Hopes for a new world”
