Nine European visitors came to Atlanta June 21st to 25th to meet with their counterparts working in international aviation and environmental policies. The group was invited to the United States under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program, and represented Belgium, the European Commission, Finland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. This delegation of government officials, transportation experts, researchers, and journalists were able to talk with their professional counterparts about the inner-workings of policy-making as it relates to aviation and environmental issues.

On their first day in Atlanta the group was able to tour the city on their own. In the evening they were invited to the homes of GCIV members for home hospitality. The group was able to see a variety of Atlanta’s neighborhoods and enjoyed the chance to talk about local issues.

Their first day in Atlanta was spent at a number of appointments at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. They met with airport officials and discussed the introduction of fuel-saving operational measures at the airport, Required Navigation Performance (RNP) and Area Navigation (RNAV) approaches, spacing and merging, and timed arrivals. They also had the opportunity to visit the Control Tower. The following day the group spent the morning at the Martin Luther King Jr., National Historic Site, learning about the importance of Atlanta in the civil rights movement. In the afternoon they met with faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Aerospace Engineering. They visited the Air Transportation Laboratory and discussed aviation environmental initiatives and other research done at the school.

GCIV was honored to have these distinguished visitors come to Georgia and meet with our state's many valuable professional resources. We hope their experiences here in Atlanta gave them a first-hand view of the diversity of the United States and a new perspective on aviation and environmental policies.