David Learmount/LONDON
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is hoping to save its member airlines billions of dollars and raise international safety standards by accrediting a worldwide operational safety audit system.
The just-launched IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) concept, when fully developed by the end of next year, should eliminate the duplication of cost and effort caused by existing multiple, nationally diverse safety audit requirements.
At present, says IATA, "over 70,000 audits are performed, costing in excess of $3 billion worldwide", adding that "these often overlap, both in content and intent".
After nine months of consultation with the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF), the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the world's major aviation safety regulators, IATA's director of safety Paul Woodburn says the IOSA advisory group "has been given the green light" to create a workable system.
Drawing on the world's major airlines, as well as Europe's Joint Aviation Authorities, the FSF, ICAO and the US Federal Aviation Administration, seven task forces have been set up to construct an audit checklist and to define the standards airlines must meet.
When this has been done, says Woodburn, an independent agency like Bureau Veritas will be called in to accredit the system, the standards and the training required for qualified audit teams.
When the IOSA is in operation, says Woodburn, it will complement ICAO's "top-down" audit of state safety oversight capabilities and practice with its "bottom-up" audit of airline standards.
Whereas ICAO's standards and practices are minima, "the IOSA will force airlines towards best practice", he adds.
Source: Flight International
