EASA and Transport Canada are the first agencies enforcing the implementation of the ICAO GRF in August 2021. The reason behind the early implementation is the climate: both regions have northern areas that will be well into winter operations when the ICAO November deadline will arrive. Hence, to avoid having a new system coming into force in the middle of the winter season, this early implementation solution has been adopted.

As the purpose of GRF is to create a uniform standard on how assessing, reporting and applying runway condition are done on both a global and aviation industry level, it involves all stakeholders in operations: aerodromes, air traffic control (ATC), operators and OEMs.

With the implementation of this new reporting format, we will also see for example a new SNOWTAM format, Slippery WET, the Runway Condition Code (RWYCC) matrix and an update of OEM aircraft performance to correlate to the RWYCC codes.

The latter has proven to be a challenge, since the OEMs have been waiting for the EASA update of CS-25 before starting their work on updating aircraft performance to be compliant with GRF. This combined with fact that Europe is in the lead to implement the ICAO GRF has put some additional stress on the European operators, as they are still waiting on these updates from the OEM side.

EASA has created a dedicated page for GRF on their Air Ops Community site. There you can also find the recording of the sessions from the EASA GRF webinar held in March 2020, as well a section with Q&A. As this project progresses, new material will be added continuously.