Yannick MALINGE

SVP & Chief Product Safety Officer 

Dear Aviation Colleagues,

The welcome return of passengers to the skies shows the resilience of our industry and highlights why we must continue to always keep safety first, especially as the pace of the recovery accelerates toward pre-pandemic levels. Even with this recovery target in sight, people from across the air transport system remain focussed on raising the bar for safety.

A focus during the period of massive fleet grounding was to ensure the parked aircraft could return to service airworthy and safe. To face the ramp-up to recovery, it was necessary to go the extra mile for safety together. As a manufacturer, we worked to ensure continuity was maintained with our partners and suppliers. Operators managed recurrent training of pilots, cabin crews, and maintenance crews. The same efforts extended to air traffic controllers, dispatchers, ground crews, and everyone working for a safe air transport system. We share the constant need to continuously develop our people in aviation, to get back to the basics, and to share safety lessons learned.

The public appetite for travel, following the relaxation of restrictions, created a rapid ramp-up in the demand for flights. This causes an increased risk exposure that is similar to the effects of the accelerated industry growth observed from the early 2000s. We worked together to significantly reduce the accident rate throughout this growth period by taking safety beyond compliance, managing risks, and implementing sound safety governance. Even if the accident rate remains very low today, we cannot afford to be complacent. It is our call to action to redouble these efforts and to continuously enhance the safety of a flight, because we all expect zero accidents when we fly.

In facing these challenges together, I sincerely wish everyone successful and safe flying in 2023.