Airline insiders still pessimistic about safety
Airline insiders still pessimistic about safety, says Ascend
Even though air travel is 100 times safer today
TUESDAY JUNE 14TH 2011
London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo – Aviation insiders say global safety will either worsen or simply fail to improve over the next five years, in a continuing decline of confidence, uncovered by Ascend, (www.ascendworldwide.com), the aviation information specialists.
Ascend conducts an annual survey of aviation professionals worldwide regarding their opinions of airline safety. 200 people completed the survey and the results this year show 52% believe airline safety will stay the same or get worse over the next five years, continuing a trend in which 53% said this last year, and 47% in 2009.
There was a corresponding slump in confidence regarding safety over the previous five years, with 43% saying they believe safety has stayed the same or grown worse, up from 41% last year and 32% in 2009.
Ascend’s director of safety Paul Hayes is concerned by the results, saying this attitude contrasts to a steadily improving trend of fewer fatalities and less frequent crashes over recent decades.
“They simply don’t bear out the facts,” he says. “Air travel is 100 times safer today than in 1950, when commercial aviation was still very new. There would be more than 10 fatal accidents a day if planes were crashing at the same rate now as in those days.”
“We particularly note the continued decline in optimism over global safety improvements in the last five years – the proportion of our insiders expecting airline safety to get better has slumped from 68% in 2009 to 58% last year and 56% this year, showing a steady fall.”
“These figures demonstrate that even people in the know are affected emotionally by the media coverage of air accidents,” Hayes continued.
“Last year was far from a banner year for airline safety, with a number of high profile crashes. But the ongoing safety record continues to show improvement – and insiders must be aware of this.”
“Their responses underline the fact that human behaviour is the key to safety. They are worried about the quality of airline management and the experience of airline personnel. Conversely, our respondents are overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of technology both in the air and on the ground, and they are not concerned about the financial health of airlines impacting on safety.”
When asked to rank what the greatest threats to improvement in global airline safety would be over the medium term, results showed that “Shortage of experienced personnel” was considered the number one threat and “Airline management experience/attitudes/culture” was second.
When asked what they believed could be the greatest drivers for continued improvement, “Management accountability for safety” and “New technology (ground/ATC)” were ranked the highest.
Paul Hayes adds, “It’s understandable that people are concerned about a lack of experienced personnel, given that future shortages of pilots, especially in the Asia Pacific region, have repeatedly made headlines. On the other hand, the acknowledgement of new technology in improving safety is really good news.”
“But really, the important point here is that, despite being reminded of high-profile crashes by saturation news coverage, this is a very safe way to travel.”
