IATA announces 1st safety leadership charter signatories
Safety leaders from more than 20 airlines including Ethiopian, Air Canada, Air India & Cathay are first signatories
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced the launch of the IATA safety leadership charter at the IATA World Safety and Operations Conference taking place in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Safety leaders from more than 20 airlines are the first signatories: Air Canada, Air India, Air Serbia, ANA, British Airways, Carpatair, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Emirates Airline, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Japan Airlines, Pegasus Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Qantas Group, Qatar Airways, TAROM, United Airlines, Vietnam Airlines and Xiamen Airlines.
"The safety leadership charter is aimed at strengthening organisational safety culture through commitment to eight key safety leadership guiding principles. It was developed in consultation with IATA members and the wider aviation community to support industry executives in evolving a positive safety culture within their organisations," says an official release.
Safety leadership guiding principles include:
*Leading the obligation to safety through both words and actions.
*Fostering safety awareness among employees, the leadership team, and the board.
*Creating an atmosphere of trust where all employees feel responsible for safety and are encouraged and expected to report safety-related information.
*Guiding the integration of safety into business strategies, processes, and performance measures and creating the internal capacity to manage and achieve organisational safety goals; and
*Regularly assessing and improving organisational safety culture.
"Leadership matters," says Willie Walsh, Director General, IATA. "It’s the strongest factor affecting safety behaviour. By signing up to the IATA safety leadership charter, these industry leaders are visibly demonstrating their commitment to the criticality of safety culture within their own airlines and the need to continuously build on the work that has gone before."
Nick Careen, Senior Vice President, Operations, Safety and Security, IATA adds: "Commercial aviation has benefited from over 100 years of safety advances that inspires us to raise the bar even higher. The commitment and drive by aviation’s leaders for continuous improvement on safety is a longstanding pillar of commercial aviation that has made flying the safest form of long-distance travel. Signing this charter honours the achievements that should give everyone the highest confidence when flying and sets a powerful and timely reminder that we can never be complacent on safety."
