ACI WORLD SAFETY SEMINAR, BEIJING , 18 NOVEMBER

creating a global safety culture

 

Angela Gittens, Director General, Airports Council International

 

As we all know, safety and security are the pillars on which we have built our industry’s reputation. Along with our objectives to reduce address environmental impacts and our operating role in economic vitality in the committees we serve, safety and security form the cornerstones of our business imperatives. It is our job to integrate these objectives and produce efficient, high quality service to our customers.

 

ACI promotes the creation of a global safety culture which emphasises breakthrough safety initiatives and collaborative efforts to continuously improve our performance while accommodating growth in demand and meet the expectations of our customers and our communities.

 

With our common purpose here in Beijing in mind, we must look at the impact of today’s fast changing workplace and new technologies that enable us to take an integrated management approach to safety. Airport operators must weave together solutions through the use of existing facilities and equipment, the design of new facilities and operational processes to improve passenger and cargo handling and achieve environmental objectives.

 

As well, we look to the challenges posed by the current global economic environment.

 

Working in Challenging Times

Although the volatile status of world economies and financial markets is suppressing travel and shipping demand right now, ACI forecasts that within two years we will see a resurgence of demand. The current negative business outlook, with fears of recession and resulting erosion in consumer confidence generated a drop in demand in September: a 4 percent drop in passenger traffic and a 6 percent drop in freight volume.  And the economic situation has finally had an effect on international demand, with passenger traffic down in September by 3 percent and freight down by 6 percent.

 

It was only a few months ago when the conventional wisdom was that the Asia-Pacific region was virtually autonomous with its economies no longer tied to the economies of the United States and Europe. Yet the Asia Pacific region, the largest international passenger market, plummeted by 6.6 percent in September, a result driven by double digit drops at key hubs Incheon, Shanghai, Narita, Taipei, Bangkok, and 4 percent down at Hong Kong. What we have seen in the last few weeks is that we are truly in a global economy and no region stands alone.

 

Of course it is difficult to say when this economic downturn will stop. But there are already some new factors in the equation. The recent slashing of fuel prices is welcome news for airlines, with some now removing the fuel surcharge to stimulate customer demand. Those with cash will try to hedge at these advantageous prices.

 

Governments can play a positive and decisive role in helping to turn around the current situation. Liberalised air transport agreements, for example, stimulate growth and new route development. Recently Singapore and Kuwait signed a new open skies agreement to allow for full flexibility on air services operated by carriers of both countries.

 

Governments are also providing financial relief to stabilise their economies. Just last week China’s State Council announced a USD 586 billion economic stimulus package to bolster the weakening economy amid the worsening global economic slowdown. They will allocate the funds to a wide range of national infrastructure and social welfare projects, including airports and a "pro-active fiscal policy" package to loosen credit markets and encourage lending.

 

And we know from our ACI Forecast analysis that not only here in Asia Pacific, but in many countries, the underlying demand for air transportation remains strong. By 2027, airports worldwide will welcome 11 billion passengers — more than double today’s traffic.

 

Asia Pacific is the region that will see the strongest growth in the next twenty years, growing by 6.3 percent annually during that time. Its share of total world traffic will increase from 24 percent in 2007 to nearly 36 percent by 2027, overtaking North America as the world’s largest market. Domestic markets will expand rapidly in Asia Pacific, as will intra-regional travel driven by increased trade links between China and its neighbours, as well as booming domestic travel markets in mainland China, India and Vietnam.

It is as important for safety professionals to track these trends as it is for economists. To accommodate twice as many passengers in 20 years, airport owners will be challenged to provide adequate capacity. In 2007 airports committed over USD 42 billion to airport expansion and renovation projects. By 2013 airports worldwide will have committed over USD 350 billion to modernise and expand existing infrastructure, in addition to Greenfield airport projects that are not even included in that figure. Although some projects have been deferred while individual airports re-evaluate their forecasts, the industry as a whole realises that they need to continue with prudent investment for the future. Safety experts must be fully involved in airport development projects to ensure that we not only protect our safety record but improve on historical performance rates.

 

 

 

Issues and Actions

With this picture of long term growth in mind, I draw your attention to a set of approaches we need to consider:

-           Steps to maintain our excellent industry safety record

-           New technologies that improve operational performance

-           The effect of evolving airport management imperatives

 

1.                   Positive Steps

The first group comprises those initiatives that we can undertake to build a solid safety culture at the airport. An airport’s success in enhancing safety is directly related to the implementation of a systematic approach to safety. A Safety Management System (SMS) is designed to create such a systematic approach through organisational structure, identification of accountabilities, and the development of policies and procedures. The importance of the airport safety committee, that involves airlines and all companies and all organisations operating on any part of the airfield, cannot be overstated. The backbone of the SMS is the conduct of risk-based assessments for each procedure, operation or situation taking place on the aerodrome. This approach allows the aerodrome operator to reduce the risk of an accident or incident occurrence to a level as low as reasonably practicable.

 

This approach of creating a safety cultureat the airport, where all employees recognise the importance of standard safety operating procedures is at the core of ensuring that ICAO standards are followed for safe aerodrome operation and is based on the concept of continuous improvement to safety, replacing the previous notion of periodic safety audits. I am pleased to cite the recent excellent example of Hong Kong. In October they held their first cross-organisational runway inspection, as part of the annual ramp safety campaign. It involved 120 participants from 27 airport organisations, government departments, airlines, ramp operators and other business partners. The key objective is to identify all personnel who contribute to the airport’s safety profile and set out to raise their awareness and educate them on the contribution they make to the airport’s safety culture.

 

Reporting and sharing information: ACI firmly believes that airports benefit from more extensive incident reporting to gain better understanding of what happens and what can be prevented. With as much as 70 percent of our daily work focused on the delivery of safe operations, it is no surprise that improving our safety record is a central management focus, one in which we willingly invest both financial and human resources. Reporting helps to identify weaknesses and performance issues and then seek to remedy them in a non-punitive “just culture”. This process enables us to build up a body of best practices which in turn helps us to reduce the number of incursions, excursions and incidents at the airport. With increased traffic, and remember we will double traffic in 20 years; this is a critical issue just to maintain our industry’s accomplishments.

 

Preparedness for emergencies: Of course, any safety programme includes contingency planning and preparation for emergencies. As recent years have shown us, that preparation has to include health emergencies. As we learned from the SARS situation, preparation for pandemics must form part of an airport’s safety culture again reaching out to airport partners and health organisations at a local, national and international level.

 

 

2.                   New Technologies

As our industry grows rapidly in the future, we will increasingly look to new technologies for greater management efficiencies. This evolution must be directly tied to our Safety Management Systems. Change is an integral component of SMS, as part of the continuous improvement of safety. New technologies have been a source of major safety gains at airports, such as new lighting systems, precision approach and landing systems, surface movement radar, visual docking guidance systems and automated meteorological systems. Increasingly these new technologies will be used to meet many other needs, including congestion, security, environment and customer service improvements. In the best safety cultures, the safety department is an active player to ensure that new technologies are made part of continuous safety improvements.

 

We have many successful models to follow. The added capacity that New Large Aircraft (NLAs) brings to airports has shown that we can evolve and accommodate change with no sacrifice to safety standards. When safety technical and operations teams are fully integrated to airport management teams, change can make good sense for both business and safety improvements with benefit to airlines, airports and passengers.

 

Equally from a management perspective, the new ATM technologies being developed to improve airspace capacity will require airport adaptation. Major ATM changes will have repercussions on the ground that need to be managed to ensure an overall positive impact on the entire air transport system. Airport management teams, including our safety experts, must get involved now as active stakeholders in the transition process. Based on a gate-to-gate operational concept, both the US NextGen and the European SESAR programmes are expected to deliver improved safety, increased capacity and reduced environmental impact. Technological improvements are already selectively in use and others will come on stream by 2013. We all want to avoid simply transferring a bottleneck in the skies to the runway, the terminal or ground transportation, or else we will lose the benefit to the overall system. To ensure a smooth transition, it is vital that airports get involved from the outset in planning for any major system changes. And it is only a matter of time before these new technologies are adopted in all regions of the world so this is an important development for safety experts and management teams to follow closely.

 

Operating procedures continue to evolve and civil aviation authorities are working with airports to test new systems. As one example, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is testing a new approach and departure safety system at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. It makes use of new technology designed to improve flight safety and airport operational efficiency by providing advanced warning of wind hazards and wind shifts. The system continuously scans the approach and departure corridors, enabling air traffic control personnel to offer precise, timely direction to pilots during their most critical phase of flight.

 

Another example, this time on the ground, is a new surface surveillance system that will be deployed by NAV CANADA at the Aéroports de Montreal to complement the surface radar technology they currently have in place. The goal is to give a more accurate picture of aircraft and vehicle placement. Vehicle locators will track airport vehicles in the manoeuvring area and provide controllers with extensive situational awareness for safety, capacity and efficiency improvements at one of Canada’s busiest airports. It will also help reduce costly delays, contributing to lower airline fuel consumption and reduced greenhouse gas emissions — appreciable advantages in today’s current context.

 

3.                   Airport Management Imperatives

Briefly, I touch on a few important business challenges for airport operators.

The first is staff requirements. In our growth environment, we will recruit, train and try to hold on to thousands of new employees. Today, over 4.5 million people work at airports. Tomorrow, that number must grow rapidly and in a rapid growth environment this is a tremendous challenge. Training and practicing both the known and new safety procedures until they are deeply ingrained is part of building the global safety culture across the industry, for the safety of the airport personnel and the customers we serve.

 

New governance and new management structures will continue to be introduced at airports as communities focus on customer service quality in the increasingly competitive airport business. We expect to see diversity of ownership models, and more privatisation of airports, with new investors and non-aviation businesses entering the field. But there will be no change to the responsibility of national authorities for safety oversight: the Chicago Convention’s Annex 14 is our guide and it will continue to be regularly updated to fit aviation requirements in a fast evolving environment. Again, an integrated SMS at the airport will be an effective tool to bring together airport employees from all backgrounds to work together on ensuring the application of ICAO’s global standards.

 

Complexity of airport design: Designing the airport of the future is a complex endeavour. Environment has joined safety and security among industry priorities, and will become an increasingly determining, and possibly limiting, factor in air travel traffic growth. The entire aviation industry must show that we are actively reducing our carbon footprint, and we expect this will be a key factor when airport operators undertake new building programmes and select new technologies for operating procedures. We will have the on-going challenge of adapting our facilities to meet future safety and security parameters, while also attending to other key requirements such as environment, noise, and availability of public transport to and from city centres. In the field of airport development, multi-disciplinary requirements demand foresight and excellent coordination of management teams in order to build a sustainable, safe and secure air transport system.

 

 

Pushing the Ceiling

Let me close with an observation and a challenge. My observation is an obvious one: each of you here is highly motivated to improve the safety record of this industry. ACI is committed as well. I can point to the many ICAO panels, committees, and working groups where ACI contributes to enhancing global safety standards. I can say with pride that we are working actively with the Flight Safety Foundation, with the World Health Organisation, and with our airline and ATM partners on improved procedures that will improve our safety record. We develop guidelines and handbooks for airport operators, and we offer the best safety training available for airport staff through our Global Training Hub and the joint ACI – ICAO training initiative.

 

But my challenge is that each of us, including ACI, must do more. We need to stretch our professional commitment to improve performance and raise the bar on safety. ICAO recently announced that their systems and procedures established for the administration of its Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) were recertified ISO 9001:2000 compliant by Moody Certification of North America. This endorsement assures ICAO Member States and the travelling public of an ongoing commitment to enhance aviation safety worldwide. I challenge my colleagues at ACI and our members to look for ways in which we too can push our heightened safety performance. We have projects in the pipeline for 2009 which include ACI guidance on Safety Management Systems, Safety Performance Indicators, Safety Auditing, and Emergency Response Planning.

 

 

 

 

There are many possibilities for improvement and I hope that this forum will allow each of you to take home a new idea, a new project and renewed commitment to safety.