Shortlist for the CANSO Global Safety Achievement Awards 2024 announced

CANSO has announced the shortlisted candidates for the CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award 2024.

The CANSO Safety Standing Committee Steering Group met recently to deliberate on the nominations submitted for the 2024 CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award. The award recognises individuals, teams, or companies that have made a significant contribution to aviation safety in the past 12 months.

"We’re thrilled to announce this year’s shortlisted nominees, each of whom has made a meaningful impact on aviation safety. Their efforts in areas like weather data, safety culture, and collaboration set a great example for the industry. We look forward to celebrating these achievements at our conference,” commented John Wennes, CANSO Safety Programme Manager. 

The award presentation will take place at the CANSO Global Safety Conference in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 24-27 March.

This year’s short-listed nominees are:

• NAV CANADA - AVMET

NAV CANADA, under Sophie Splawinski, led an industry wide effort to take weather from theoretical to operational. This has lead to the understanding across all aviation players, and is accessible to the public, on the effects of weather on operational decision making, flow rates, delays, cancellations and why this is done to ensure safe air operations everyday.

AVMET converts the hazards of daily aviation weather into explainable risks allowing all operational users to develop a risk profile for the day, or the flight to be conducted.

• AIRWAYS NEW ZEALAND - Just Culture Refresh project team

Airways undertook a comprehensive, independent review of its safety culture between 2020 and 2023, a period which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. The review looked at all aspects of safety culture and, while Just Culture scored relatively well compared with the other cultures, it was clear that there was a need to increase trust across the business in order to address the wider safety culture.

A project team led by the Health, Safety & Wellbeing team undertook a comprehensive review of the Airways Just Culture Framework to ensure it reflects their organisational maturity and communicates what Just Culture means at Airways. This included representatives from across the business and industry association partners. An external Safety Culture Leadership Subject Matter Expert (Dr Hillary Bennett, Leading Safety) was consulted to review the framework and review outputs. Endorsement was also received from professional associations.

• Austro Control, NAV Canada, Skyguide - Human Performance Collaborative

Austro Control, NAV Canada and Skyguide combined safety knowledge and developed a methodology to measure and analyse Safety Culture across three countries using a combined methods approach, involving an online survey and facilitated online workshops. This approach includes analysis and visualisation techniques, utilising a Power BI dashboard and creating Safety Culture benchmarking opportunities. Additionally, the three ANSPs carried out joint safety exchange workshops, allowing key safety and ops roles to exchange best practices and ideas.