Editorial: Safety First: Beginning and ending on the runway

It’s sometimes easy to forget that this industry, with its constant exposure to the impact of the economy, political upheavals, wars and other events outside of its control, has much to celebrate.

There are the constant technological “firsts” and the innovations in passenger service celebrated this month with our 38th Annual Airline Industry Achievement Awards. But above all, this industry’s most remarkable achievement is its safety record, which has now been maintained at around 4 accidents per 1 million departures for some 10 years.

Two reports underscore why the airline industry stands high above all others in safety. The US National Transportation Safety Board’s 2010 accident report and ICAO’s first-ever State of Global Aviation Safety report emphatically affirm Superman’s famous cinematic assurance to Lois Lane that flying is the safest way to travel. Statistically speaking, flying commercially is by far the safest way to get from one point to another.

Total US aviation-related fatalities in 2010 were 472, well below total fatalities from boating (733), rail (813) and roadway (33,883). To put things in perspective, 44 people died in bus accidents in the US in 2010 while 618 died in bicycle accidents. Some 4,280 pedestrians were killed in US road accidents in 2010.

Globally, ICAO reports there were 121 commercial airline accidents in 2010 compared to 113 in 2009. While that resulted in a marginal increase in the accident rate, from 3.9 per 1 million departures to 4 per 1 million, it is clearly an extraordinary record that has been achieved despite continued growth—worldwide scheduled traffic volume experienced a year-over-year increase of 4.5% in 2010, setting a new record of more than 30.5 million departures.

Still, there are areas of concern and the most critical of these is runway incursions and excursions, the number one cause of fatal accidents today. Given that by 2030, the number of departures is expected to reach more than 52 million annually, this is a serious issue that requires top priority. If runway safety is not addressed, the industry will not be able to maintain its stellar accident rate of the past decade.

As always, the industry is working collaboratively to address this issue. Led by ICAO through its Runway Safety Programme, there is a coordinated and global effort to improve runway safety.

But it now also becomes more critical than ever for governments and authorities around the world to understand the importance of airport and infrastructure investment—as well as the need for more urgent attention to speeding up the introduction of new-technology air traffic management systems such as NextGen.

That’s an industry lobbying task to secure the political support—and appropriate levels of funding—that are necessary to make this a top-level priority for all countries, whether in those regions like North America and Europe that are straining under congestion, or those regions with emerging economies and booming air traffic growth.

Without that level of prioritization, the unacceptable risk is that the world’s runways will not stay as safe as the world’s skies.