THE POSTAL HISTORY OF ICAO

 

Errors in the acronym of the Organization

 

The official name of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is defined by Article 43 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as Chicago Convention signed on 7 December 1944 by 52 States. From there, ICAO’s official name is written as follows:

  1. In English: International Civil Aviation Organization;
  2. In French: Organisation de l’aviation civile internationale;
  3. In Spanish: Organización de Aviación Civil Internacional;
  4. In Russian: Международная организация гражданской авиации.

 

The corresponding acronyms related to the official names are written as follows:

  1. In English: ICAO;
  2. In French: OACI;
  3. In Spanish: OACI;
  4. In Russian: ИКАО. It should be noted that the Cyrillic characters adopted for the acronym do not correspond to the initials of the Organization in Russian, but rather the transliteration of the English ICAO.

 

Note that the French acronym of the Organization (OACI - Organisation de l’aviation civile internationale) and Spanish acronym (OACI - Organización de Aviación Civil Internacional) are just the reverse of the English acronym (ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization).

 

Bulgaria – 25 December 1984 - 40th Anniversary of ICAO

The first error comes from the acronym of the Organization (ИКАО), wherein the letter A is missing.

As regards the Cyrillic name of the International Civil Aviation Organization, the margin uses the word airline (in singular form) instead of aviation. 

 

Guatemala – 02 April 1987 - 40th Anniversary of ICAO

The text of this cover presents two errors:

1.  The English acronym ICAO should not be broken by a line return. It is one word.

2.  The acronym in Cyrilic is misspelled. The first letter should not be an N from the Latin alphabet and the two letters O and A are reversed. The exact spelling is: ИКАО.

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