Indonesia given a hand with safety

Steve Creedy, Aviation writerJuly 06, 2007

THE International Air Transport Association will support efforts toimprove Indonesia's poor safety record by adding the country to itsPartnership for Safety program.

IATA said it would use the program, which has been successfullydeployed in other global trouble spots such as Africa, to raiseairline operating standards in Indonesia.

The offer by the airline umbrella group comes after Indonesia thisweek agreed to a major overhaul of its troubled civil aviation systemin a groundbreaking pact with the UN-backed International CivilAviation Organisation.

Indonesia's air safety record has been under fire since a series ofaccidents earlier this year, culminating in a Garuda Indonesia crashat Yogyakarta that killed 21 people, including five Australians.

The European Union is sufficiently worried about the effectiveness ofIndonesia's safety regulator, the Directorate General of CivilAviation, that it announced last week it would ban all 51 Indonesianairlines from its airspace.

The ICAO deal saw Indonesia agree to restructure its aviationregulator and enact new laws to help it meet international safetyobligations.

IATA's PfS program will complement those changes by helping airlinesprepare for the IATA Operational safety Audit (IOSA), a globallystandardised safety auditing system which all member airlines mustundertake by the end of this year.

IOSA assesses the operational management and control systems of anairline and was developed in co-operation with regulatory bodies suchas US Federal Aviation Administration, Australia's Civil AviationSafety Authority and Europe's Joint Aviation Authority.

It includes a series of seminars on best operational safetypractices, individual analysis of the gap between an airline's safetypractices and accepted standards, and specialised post-gap safetytraining.

IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani said the program would makethe safety tools available to Indonesian airlines free of charge.

"Safety is air transport's No1 priority and last year was our safestyear ever," Mr Bisignani said.

"The global accident rate was one accident for every 1.5 millionflights and IATA members - benefiting from our safety programs - dideven better with one accident every 2 million flights.

"The results are impressive, but the tragedies in Indonesia earlierthis year remind us that much work needs to be done." The IATA offerwas extended at a Bali aviation summit also attended by AustralianCivil Aviation Safety Authority officials, who were there as part ofa $24 million federal Government push to help Indonesia improvetransport safety.

Airservices Australia, the nation's air traffic controller, is alsoworking with Indonesian authorities to improve airspace managementthere.

Although global air safety has improved markedly in recent decades,IATA wants to improve the accident rate a further 25 per cent by2008.

"We are setting a high standard with IOSA and we are working withairlines through partnership for Safety - members and non-members -to ensure that the high standard delivers real results," Mr Bisignanisaid.