David Learmount/AMSTERDAM
Chief executives of Taiwan's 14 airlines are to meet near Taipei for a two-day brainstorming session on flight safety on 6-7 April, says China Airlines (CAL) flight safety director Capt Samson Yeh.
This will be the first time that such a meeting, led by Taiwan's Civil Aviation Authority, has taken place. It is the latest in a series of moves intended to improve the country's poor airline safety performance during the 1990s (Flight International, 15-21 February).
Capt Yeh, attending the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) European Aviation Safety Seminar in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on 7-8 March, revealed that flight safety officers of Taiwan's airlines have begun to meet once a month to exchange safety information. There have been substantial changes in safety attitudes in Taiwan in the past two years, Yeh says. He points out that a CAL blame-free incident reporting system that generated 30 reports a month when it was set up two years ago now brings in 200 a month since the pilots learned to trust it.
Capt Yeh says that on a larger scale, Asia-Pacific carriers are close to setting up a regional safety council, with safety chiefs from "all the Asian airlines" meeting on 14 March to determine what form the council will take and which state will chair it. Thailand may head the unnamed organisation, says Yeh.
The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines has a safety committee in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but the International Civil Aviation Organisation and FSF have pressed for a full regional council to include national regulators and carriers.
Source: Flight International
