Annual Safety Seminar promotes best practices and just culture

The current economic downturn could have an impact on safety programmes in the mid- to long-term. Even though the overall situation is improving gradually over time, the pace of progress is too slow and in order to meet the ten-fold safety improvement aim of the Single European Sky, further efforts will be needed. Traffic is going to grow, we have to carry on devoting energy and resources to safety and we have to make sure that the widespread budget cuts we are witnessing today do no affect either the availability of safety resources in the short-term, nor the investment in the crucial long-term programmes, said Tzvetomir Blajev, EUROCONTROL Senior Team Leader, Operational Safety and SMS Support. The Seminar also addressed the most important issue of just culture, which will be tackled at the upcoming ICAO high level Safety Conference which will take place at the end of March. It emphasized the need to establish a culture in which individuals would feel safe to report deficiencies, errors or incidents. An environment where the reporting and sharing of information is facilitated and supported is a crucial enabler of enhanced safety. All of us in the aviation industry - controllers, regulators, service providers, airlines, airports, manufacturers, researchers must take the time to engage in constructive dialogue; to share our knowledge and best practices. Provided we do so a great deal of time and effort can be saved and concrete progress made, said David McMillan, Director General of EUROCONTROL.