Journal of Air Transport Management 10 (2004) 225–226

ARTICLE IN PRESS

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Opinion piece

Aviation safety and security; reaching beyond borders

Civil air transportation is a major lubricant for tradeand is the bulwark for industries such as tourism. Itcarries about 30–40% of world trade by value. It is asignificant industry by itself, as well as serving otherindustries, deploying 18,000 aircraft globally, involving10,000 airports and employing about 3.9 million. Itsterminals are often focal points for local economicdevelopment. Its flexibility provides the scope to meetthe demands of modern industry, and the social needs ofa rapidly globally dispersed population.Commercial air transport is also a very safe industry

when compared to other modes of transportation.Commercially operated aircraft accidents are nowextremely rare to the point that they make newsheadlines. The recent use of aircraft as weapons is anew phenomenon; although one that has naturallyaroused considerable public anxieties. Nevertheless, airtransportation is in overall terms the safest ways totravel, and, statistically speaking, is becoming safer.From a public policy perspective, one problem is that

public perception is often not founded on hard data butrather by perception. Airline crashes may be rare butthey often attract considerable publicity when they dooccur because of the concentration of fatalities. From apolicy stand point this means that safety standards foraviation must exceed those that would be supportedfrom statistical and risk/benefit point of view. As aconsequence, a universal expectation for safety andsecurity regulations has emerged in this industry.But there is also the challenge that a large portion of

civil air transportation involves international movementof people and goods. The network features of theindustry mean that it is only as safe and secure as theweakest link in the global system. International co-operation in safety and security measures thereforeextends beyond the nation state to embrace theinternational community in an effort to ensure coordi-nated policies and agreed upon standards.This was recognized in the Chicago Convention on

International Civil Aviation (1944), but until the recentpast two decades the enforcement of the safety oversightstandards and recommended practices, adopted now by188 countries, has not been widespread. The initiation ofInternational Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) pro-gram by the US in 1992, the European Civil AviationConference’s Safety of Foreign Aircraft program, and

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ICAO’s own mandatory Universal Safety OversightAudit Program (USOAP) established in 1998, havechanged this. The challenge for many countries is inamassing and maintaining the financial, technical, andmanpower resources needed to meet their obligations.Help has been forthcoming from the international

organizations themselves, and there has been bilateraland multi-lateral assistance such as under the US’s SafeSkies for Africa initiative, but there is still a need toconvince the senior decision makers of many countriesof the need for their political commitment to ensure safeand secure air transportation. Even where the aviationauthorities have a commitment, there is often the largerissue of extracting resources from the general transpor-tation budgets, or the national Treasury.Our view is that there is a need for a more complete

education process at several levels.First, there is the need for national governments to

appreciate the important role that air transportationplays in the modern, increasingly integrated globaleconomy. It is still often seen as transportation of thewealthy, whereas in reality air transportation is a vitalinput into labor-intensive sectors such as tourism, and akey resource if dynamic ‘high-tech’ industries are to begrown and retained. In many cases it is also a very cheapform of transportation in that it does not require themassive expenditures on fixed infrastructure that is acharacteristic of rail or road modes, and it is in manyways more flexible.Second, at the administrative level an appreciation is

required of the international nature of most airtransportation activities. This means that nationalstandards, approaches, and structures must conform tointernational requirements. It is futile to look inwards atthe approaches of other modes of transport, or indeedother industries. Air transportation is about interde-pendencies and this requires thinking in terms ofintegrated systems and safety structures.Finally and in part linked to the above, there are

economies in standardization and cooperation in themeeting of safety oversight obligations. In particular,initiatives such as the establishment of the CentralAmerican Aviation Safety Agency (ACSA) by the groupof Central American states (the COCESNA countries)to develop a common strategy to meet their ICAOoversight obligations, or the less successful Banjul

ARTICLE IN PRESSV. Motevalli, R. Stough / Journal of Air Transport Management 10 (2004) 225–226226

Accord involving six African nations, suggest thepotential benefits that can be reaped by pulling togetherand pooling assets. It is not just the case that actingtogether creates greater safety benefits; it can makemuch better use of scarce safety resources.The years ahead will present a series of challenges to

the maintenance of both safe and secure air travel, as theever-increasing volume of air travel taxes the resourcesof aviation authorities, and as ever more sophisticatedweapons become available to terrorists.A two-pronged response offers the greatest promise:

more and better multi-state agreements, and a vigorousprogram of education. Multi-nation agreements shouldbe developed and executed with the aim to drive theprocess of cooperation—cooperation in the sharing ofthreat information, cooperation in the monitoring ofcompliance with standards of safety and securitypractice, and cooperation in the sharing of resources.Such multi-nation agreements can take several forms. Insome cases regional groupings will be more effective. Insome, bilateral agreements are most logical. In somesituations mega-regions, such as Eurasia, may beappropriate.The second strategy thrust is a vigorous program of

education. Educational programs need to be directed atdifferent levels of responsibility. Within government, thehighest levels—heads of state, legislatures, seniorministers—need to be given, in brief and pointedsessions, an appreciation of the importance of airtransport to their countries’ economies and socialcohesion as well as their obligations under the ICAOConvention. At the level of senior government officialswithin civil aviation authorities, education shouldaddress general guidelines required for safe and secureaviation, including salient technological, financial,regulatory, and organizational elements. Finally, at thelevel of middle management, detailed instruction in the

requirements for adherence to international safety andsecurity standards is required. Similarly, in the privatesector, short training modules adapted to different levelsof management can address safety and security issues.It is this latter strategy, education, which George

Washington University, George Mason University, andthe US Federal Aviation Administration have pursuedwith their International Summit on Aviation Safety andSecurity. This program conducts some eight programsannually, aimed at the top levels of government inemerging countries around the world, and designed toimprove understanding of the policy and regulatoryissues in aviation safety and security. Already some 400senior officials from 60 countries have participated inthe Summit program, and another 150 officials willparticipate in summits scheduled for the rest of the year2004. While essentially a pilot program, the Summitprogram has already yielded results in terms of increasedunderstanding around the world of aviation safety andsecurity imperatives. Useful as it has been, this Summitprogram is just a beginning, and, as safety and securitychallenges increase in the years ahead, a much greatereffort focused on the two strategies listed above,organizational and educational, will be required.

Vahid MotevalliTransportation Research Institute,

George Washington University, 20101 Academic Way,

Ashburn, VA 20147-2604, USA

Roger StoughCenter for Transportation Policy,

Operations and Logistics, George Mason University,

Fairfax, VA 22030, USA

E-mail address: rstough@gmu.edu