GENERAL TOPIC
Safety, Our Shared Destination
As professionals, working in an industry with annual growth rates between 5 & 6%, we must ask ourselves the question ‘what could be the impact on Safety of a doubling of air traffic?’.
Without industry-wide action to lower the accident rate, by 2030 we will be experiencing accidents more frequently.
This article looks at an Airbus initiative called Air Transport Safety Destination 10X Together, which is a platform upon which Airbus and our operators can collaborate to propose pragmatic solutions
to key identified safety issues.
COMMERCIAL AVIATION’S RECORD ON SAFETY
Our industry can be very proud of its record on safety. Our combined efforts have reduced the fatal accident rate to about only 1 fatal accident per 10 million departures on the fourth generation of airplanes (fig.1).
Yet despite this success, the fatal accident rate for 4th generation jets has been consistent for the last 10 years, barely decreasingly.
Even if these abstracted statistics show a low and stable accident rate, we at Airbus believe we must still address the real-world meaning of fatal accidents and their impact on people, since any accident is an unacceptable tragedy.
(fig.1)
Accident rate per million by aircraft generation (ten year moving average).
The accident rate for 4th generation jets is very low but has barely decreased over the last 10 years.
SAFETY IN THE FUTURE
What do we know about the future of our industry?
In terms of the volume of activity we need to manage, we know that our industry’s output (RPKs) continues to grow at a global rate of between 5 & 6% per year. We also have the proof from history which shows that this growth is resilient to external shocks over the long-term. We can therefore be reasonably confident in the consensus of forecasts which anticipate a doubling of air traffic over the next 15 years (fig.2).
As professionals, we must ask ourselves the question, ‘what could be the impact on Safety of a doubling of air traffic?’
If we assume a scenario where our fatal accident rate remains at today’s level, the doubling of flights forecast to occur by 2030 will inevitably lead to double the number of accidents in numerical terms. This must surely be something which we all find unacceptable.
Furthermore, rapid global development of the industry may generate increased operational pressures at all areas of the air transport system. It will also require a significant expansion of the number of newly certified personnel, potentially causing a decrease in the overall level of experience and causing new threats to emerge.
The conclusion from these considerations seems clear: we need to launch co-ordinated actions with all actors of air transport system to address upcoming threats and drive the rate of accidents lower than it has ever been.
(fig.2)
Airbus Global Market Forecast for annual traffic (trillion RPKs per year).
Air traffic is resilient to external shocks, and is forecast to double over the next 15 years.
DESTINATION 10X
With this in mind, Airbus has launched a project called ‘Air Transport Safety Destination 10X Together’, or Destination 10X for short. The objective of the Destination 10X project is to identify and implement different initiatives to enhance Air Transport Safety, in cooperation with our operators.
By sharing information and exchanging ideas, the project aims to identify ‘quick-wins’ for Safety enhancement and then move quickly into pragmatic implementation.
The Destination 10X project is integrated into Airbus’ strategy for continuous Safety Enhancement. The annual Airbus Flight Safety Conference (FSC) is a key component in this activity, since it offers Airbus and airlines a unique opportunity to share information and ideas. In 2016 the FSC was attended by 267 airline delegates from 117 different operators, and it was with this community that Airbus launched the first wave of activity on the project.
The airlines were surveyed in order to identify the areas in which they believed the industry needed to focus attention in order to improve Safety. Based on this survey, as well as from the existing safety plans from EASA, ICAO and FAA, four key areas were identified as the top priorities; Training, Weather, Safety Data, and Safety Enhancement Promotion.
At this point in the project, Airbus is running workshops with some operators on these key priority areas, to identify quick-win enhancement projects, and has chosen the top two priorities of Weather and Training as the key themes of this year’s Airbus Safety Conference in Santiago. Airlines at this conference will have the opportunity to collaborate with Airbus by participating in workshops to propose priorities to be launched for implementation in Wave 1, as well as to identify priority areas for Wave 2 (fig.3).
Similar waves will be run at every FSC, with a second wave already scheduled for the 2017 event in order to identify the next areas of focus for the project.
In addition, in order to promote a continually collaborative working mode for the project, Airbus will release a Destination 10X app and website in Q1 2017. Users will be able to receive project updates, as well as be able to vote on project priorities.
(fig.3)
Destination 10X Timeline.
Project waves are integrated into Airbus’ strategy for continuous Safety Enhancement. Each wave involves four key phases of (a) surveying industry, (b) Identifying priorities for action, (c) Validating priorities, and finally (d) Implementing solutions and evaluating the result.
DESTINATION 10X TOGETHER
The Destination 10X project is a platform upon which Airbus and its operators can collaborate to propose pragmatic solutions to key identified safety issues.
As mentioned, Airbus and our airline customers are already in co-operation in the current first wave of the project. We certainly encourage more airlines to join us as we progress into the selection of solutions, whether at the Airbus Flight Safety Conference (see pages 4-5), or through the app / website.
As we identify together quick win initiatives, we aim at sharing them across industry. The concept is to create initial momentum amongst those whose businesses are most immediately impacted by Safety, and then to continue to build momentum across other industry actors in a ‘snowball effect’.
This is a pragmatic approach to building consensus from the ground up, with a focus on action.
From the beginning of March 2017, you can install the Destination 10X app on your tablet. This is your way to engage in the Destination 10X project, to make sure your ideas are captured and priorities are implemented for finding the most effective ways to enhance Safety.
Despite our industry’s success on preventing accidents, the fatal accident rate of 1 accident per 10 million flights for 4th generation jets has been consistent for the last 10 years, barely decreasingly.
When we combine increased operational pressures arising from the forecast doubling of flights over the next 15 years, with the rapid intake of newly certified personnel which is needed to achieve growth, it is likely that we will experience accidents more frequently. This is clearly unacceptable.
The goal of Airbus’ Destination 10X project is to quickly identify and implement different initiatives to enhance Air Transport Safety and share them at industry level.
Airbus and our airline customers are already in co-operation together, and we encourage all our operators to get involved.
CONTRIBUTORS
Yannick VANHECKE
Head Of Safety Enhancement