IATA Director-General and CEO Tony Tyler
Photo by: IATA
Despite recent high profile tragedies, which claimed hundreds of lives, airline flying today is, in fact, safer than it has ever been. This was highlighted on Monday by International Air Transport Association (Iata) director-general and CEO Tony Tyler at the organisation’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Miami, Florida in the US. Iata is the global airline industry association, with 257 members who account for 84% of all air traffic.
“Safety is the number one priority for everyone associated with aviation,” he affirmed in his address to the AGM. “With one jet hull loss for every 4.4-million flights last year, flying has never been safer.” (To be precise, the jet hull loss rate for 2014 was 0.23 per million sectors flown, the lowest rate ever recorded.)
“In contrast, paradoxically so, aviation safety has been a constant in recent headlines,” he pointed out. “This was largely driven by three extraordinary events – MH 370, MH 17 and Germanwings 9525.”
Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 disappeared without trace in March last year while en route from Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, to Beijing, in China, while Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 was shot down over a rebel-held area of eastern Ukraine in July 2014, by a surface-to-air missile. Germanwings 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps in March by its suicidal co-pilot.
As a result of MH 370, a 15-minute position reporting standard is being developed under the aegis of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO – a specialist agency of the United Nations). “And in the near future, emerging technology and proposed new practices will move us closer to ensuring that never again will an aircraft simply disappear.”
“MH 17 was an outrage,” he asserted. “Civilian aircraft are instruments of peace. They must never be targets for weapons of war. Governments are working together through ICAO to enhance the sharing of security information.” (ICAO launched a conflict zone information portal on the Internet in April.)
“Germanwings 9525 was a deliberate and horrible act by one of our own,” he stated. “Day-in and day-out, safety is the focus of aviation professionals. But there is no immunity to mental health issues. The investigation conclusions will help airlines and regulators to look again at the balance needed to monitor mental health in an environment that is aligned with the Just Culture that drives safety forward.”
“We will always rise to the challenges that accidents present,” assured Tyler. “And we will do so in alignment with strategies and methodologies that have proved themselves over many years by making flying the safest form of long-distance travel.”