The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has reported “strong progress” in airline safety in Africa last year. This was part of a worldwide improvement in safety, revealed in the global airline industry representative organisation’s recently released 2017 safety performance data.

Last year was the second successive year in which there were no jet hull losses and no fatal accidents on the continent. And the turboprop hull loss rate, and the rates of all other accidents, declined in comparison to the average for the preceding five years. However, 2017’s turboprop hull loss rate did increase in comparison to that of 2016 – 5.70 last year, compared with 1.52 in 2016. This was the main reason the all-accident rate also increased in 2017, compared with 2016, to 6.87 from 2.43.

“Airlines in sub-Saharan Africa continued to improve their safety performance,” affirmed Iata director-general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac. “The goal is to achieve world-class safety. For a second year in a row, airlines in the region experienced no passenger fatalities and no jet hull losses.”

However, there remains a large gap in the safety performance of Africa’s turboprop fleet, and this has to be bridged. “Global standards such as the Iata Operational Safety Audit (Iosa) are making a difference,” he highlighted. “Counting all accidents, the performance of African airlines on the Iosa registry was more than three times better than non-Iosa airlines in the region.”

Consequently, Iata encourages African countries to include Iosa and the Iata Standard Safety Assessment (ISSA) into their air safety oversight frameworks. The ISSA was developed for carriers not eligible for Iosa, but can act as a one-time stepping stone to achieving full Iosa status.

“In parallel, African Governments must accelerate the implementation of Icao’s (International Civil Aviation Organisation’s)safety-related standards and recommended practices (SARPS),” he urged. “As of year-end 2017, only 25 African countries had at least 60% SARPS implementation.” (Icao is an agency of the United Nations.)

Worldwide], 2017 was a very good year for aviation safety,” he summed up. “Some 4.1-billion travellers flew safely on 41.8-million flights. We saw improvements in nearly all key metrics – globally and in most regions. And our determination to make this very safe industry even safer continues . . . The industry knows that every fatality is a tragedy. Our common goal is for every flight to take off and land safely.”

In addition to Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, North America and North Asia all enjoyed zero jet hull losses last year. For Europe, the jet hull loss rate in 2017 was 0.13 per million departures; for Asia-Pacific, it was 0.18; for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS – most of the former members of the Soviet Union), it was 0.92; and for Latin America and the Caribbean, it was 0.41. But the previous five-year (2012 to 2016) loss rate for Asia-Pacific was 0.48 and, for the CIS 1.17, while for Latin America and the Caribbean, it was 0.53, and for Europe, it was 0.14. For the record, the five-year jet hull loss rate for Africa was 2.21; for the Middle East and North Africa, it was 0.74; for North America 0.22; and for North Asia it was zero.

Regarding turboprops, Africa’s five-year hull loss figure was 7.38. The 2017 turboprop hull loss rate (per million departures) was 0.61 for Asia-Pacific (five-year rate: 1.45), 16.44 for the CIS (five-year figure: 20.59), zero for Europe (five-year rate: 0.73), zero for Latin America and the Caribbean as well (2012 to 2016: 1.55), zero for the Middle East and North Africa as well (five-year figure: 3.42), 0.94 for North America (2012 to 2016: 0.98) and zero for North Asia as well (five year rate: 8.73).