Pandora’s box of air safety regulation

Air safety’s record has never been better. But in Asia systemic problems persist as too few government dollars are chasing too few qualified pilot/inspectors.

by TOM BALLANTYNE REPORTS FROM TOKYO  

October 1st 2016

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Lack of professional oversight. Staff shortages. European black bans. Federal Aviation Administration downgrades. International Civil Aviation Organization red flags. Read More » The headlines have been damning about some of Asia’s aviation regulators.

But when 160 plus safety professionals from 37 airlines, as well as industry regulators, airframe manufacturers and service providers, gathered in Tokyo last month for a regional air safety conference, they heard none of that.

“What is the problem?” asked Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA). “What is extraordinary is that even with weak or non-existent regulation and regulatory oversight in some locations or some States [in the Asia-Pacific] the industry delivers this exemplary safety record. This pointed to the fact that regulatory oversight is essential, but being without it is not a show-stopper.”

Herdman was part of a panel that discussed “Balancing Growth and Oversight” at the AAPA’s Asia-Pacific Aviation Safety Seminar (APASS). It is a pivotal topic in a region with high projected passenger growth, increasing airport and air traffic congestion and chronic shortages of pilots, engineers, technicians and safety and regulatory inspectors.

In Boeing’s most recent forecast, the manufacturer said there would be global demand for 39,620 planes, worth $5.9 trillion, in the next 20 years, with 15,130 of the aircraft destined for Asia-Pacific airlines. As well, many of the planes delivered elsewhere in the world would be earmarked for services into the region.

At APASS, Airbus senior vice president and chief product safety officer, Yannick Malinge, said the European-headquartered manufacturer had 9,000 planes completing 25,000 flights per day, or about 10 million per year, across the world.

“By 2019, Boeing and Airbus, as well as Embraer and Bombardier, will be putting more than 2,000 new jets into service every year. This means about 20,000 pilots, mechanics and cabin crew a year [will be needed].” Malinge said despite all this flying the accident rate is remarkable, at only one per 10 million departures.

“All of us have to be afraid of one risk: complacency. It’s not going to happen to me. This is wrong, of course. One of the challenges in Asia is the growing fleet.”

Herdman agreed and emphasized he was not suggesting regulators were superfluous, but said the issue must be put in perspective. “We have talked a lot about the weaknesses of regulatory oversight. It is tempting to say or believe the industry must act urgently because this situation represents an acute safety threat,” he said.

“But that’s not the case. The fantastic safety performance this industry has delivered is the collective success of manufacturers, airlines, airports, air navigation service providers and regulators, good and bad.

“My instinct is to say regulatory oversight is a quality assurance requirement. It’s not quality control. Quality control comes from every player in the industry trying to be safe.”

The purpose of regulatory oversight is “to make sure that bad actors [airlines] aren’t tempted to enter the industry or good airlines, which are competing in the industry, are not tempted to cut corners”, Herdman said.

“You can have a very weak or non-existent regulator and have exemplary safety performance from the operators, including airlines and others.”

Pilots prefer flying to regulating At a press conference at the International Air Transport Association annual general meeting in June, former pilot and now CEO of the International Airlines Group, Willie Walsh, said he “had been in the business for 38 years and never seen a pilot shortage”. He makes a good point that also applies to regulators. Pilots around the world, especially experienced captains, are in constant demand and earn high incomes with good working conditions and career prospects. There are shortages of experienced pilots, particularly captains, in countries where salaries fail to meet the going global rate for cockpit crew and aviation engineers and technicians. The air safety oversight and aviation regulatory community worldwide relies largely on pilots to to perform their work. But these pilots can earn much more and advance more quickly at an airline than they can if they work for a government department. Director general of the aviation and security department of the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB), Shigeni Takano, told delegates at the recent Asia-Pacific Air Safety Seminar (APASS) that like most other regulators JCAB was experiencing a shortage of qualified staff to maintain quality airline safety oversight. “Airlines pay more than regulators, so obviously that makes it difficult and pilots obviously tend to want to fly more than to be inspectors. But we need more experienced pilots in the bureau.” Herdman said: “It is a major concern in developing countries where the gap between private sector salaries and government salaries is immense and not just in our sector. The situation has led to developments such as regulators being split off from the civil service pay scale and placed in a corporatized body, which recognizes the salary will be different,” Herdman said. Vietnam did this and doubled the salary of its inspectors. Tay said attracting enough experts into the regulatory community was not new. “It has existed since I joined the industry. Regulators always find it hard to recruit from the industry. You have to compete for talent and find ways to increase your line of experts within the regulator,” he said. “It is important to offer a good salary package for these positions, together with a meaningful career proposition. We should not think money is the main driver. We need to create a good career for them.” Regulators should look beyond the aviation industry to find qualified staff APASS delegates were advised. “In some cases, you can re-define the job of the regulator to be less dependent on the scarce resources of pilots. Some inspections need not be done by pilots per se. But we have to make those changes in the proper way that would help relieve the shortage among regulators,” Tay said. Thai Airways International A380 captain, Amornvaj Mansumitchai,who also is the executive vice president of the International Federation of Airline Pilots Association in the region, said at the Tokyo conference that even if the regulator matched the salary of an airline for qualified staff, potential candidates would not leave the airline. “It’s more than money. It is clear. It is much more difficult for the regulator to retain or attract people because a pilot wants to fly the aircraft. We see a lot of civil aviation authority inspectors quit to join an airline.”

Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) deputy director general, Tay Tiang Guan, agreed there could be countries with weak oversight yet airlines [in the country] were performing well.

“That can be explained by understanding that air travel is a supply chain with many parts in it. So it could well be the regulator is weak, but the airline is strong. I agree we should not generalize and say the situation is very dire and we need to fix the regulatory oversight before we can get better safety performance,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s the correct conclusion. All parties need to play a part in making sure safety assurance is in place.”

There was, however, universal agreement at the conference that oversight needs to be strengthened. Tay is co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Regional Aviation Safety Team (APRAST) that was formed by ICAO in 2011 to contribute to its Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP). Speaking in this role at the conference he said the team publishes an annual safety report that compares the Asia-Pacific with other regions.

“We have a good strategy to improve safety in the region, but more has to be done. More than half of the (Asia-Pacific) states are below the (ICAO) target of 60% in terms of effective implementation of safety oversight,” he said.

“More importantly, this region has not shown improvement in its effective implementation score compared with other regions in the last three years. It is the only region that has not shown improvement so there is a lot of pressure in this fast growth and dynamic Asia-Pacific to improve safety. Much more needs to be done.”

Tay said that after five years of existence, APRAST is getting lower than expected participation from nations as well as from the industry in its activities. “There was a lot of enthusiasm at the start, but this has changed. Commitment by the industry is critical to advance safety in the region.

“The industry has deep knowledge in aviation functions. They need to be there to drive some of the key initiatives. Airlines can help drive that and bring about the changes with regulators to meet these challenges.”

Thai Airways International (THAI) A380 captain, Amornvaj Mansumitchai, who also is executive vice president Asia-Pacific for the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations (IFALPA) said another issue that needs attention is the system for monitoring the safety oversight of flight and technical training organisations.

In Thailand, which has been red flagged by ICAO for lack of safety oversight, one training organization has had three fatal accidents in the past year, he said. “So we have a real problem here. Even without the growth, and not only in Thailand, many regulators in Asia have a problem in conducting their safety oversight properly. The growth will make the situation worse.”

The THAI A380 captain said that in Thailand the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) receives only 1%-2% of the Ministry of Transport’s budget. Land transport is allocated 35%. “It is going to take quite a long time to correct this,” he said.

Herdman said carriers are volunteering to second dozens of people to regulatory bodies. “I had a meeting with a few chief executives and one happened to mention he’d seconded 15 people to help the regulator,” he said.

“And a couple of the other CEOs said: ‘Huh, that’s nothing. I have seconded 40 people’. If you seconded the expertise they can’t regulate you. They are helping to raise standards, to train and share expertise and they may be involved in auditing other airlines, which again is uncomfortable.”

Boeing forecasts that 1.5 million cockpit crew and technicians will be required to keep airline fleets in the air in the next two decades. With this demand, can authorities stop the “brain drain” of pilots, engineers and other experts from government jobs to airlines or competing regulators that offer better salaries and career prospects?

“That touches on the constitutional question of freedom of movement,” said JCAB’s Takano. “We can’t stop pilots from doing so, from going to the Gulf or elsewhere. What we can do is make it more attractive for them to stay in terms of money and the working environment.”

THAI’s Amornvaj said the issue was more complicated than a shortage of pilots. “If you look at the figures carefully, in European countries the unemployment rate of pilots is 16.5%. In some countries it is up to 25%. There are a lot of pilots out there who are not renewing their licences after three years. Everybody says there’s a shortage of pilots in the U.S. Actually it’s not a shortage. There is a shortage of senior pilots.

“In Asia, different countries have a different profile of pilot shortages. In my country of Thailand the government has formed a committee to examine this issue, but we are talking about how to increase the quantity not the quality.”

Herdman said while the industry is going to grow enormously in the next twenty years, he was optimistic it would find solutions to these problems. “Capacity will be found. I’ve never come across a situation where we have a prolonged pilot shortage where pilot training is a private sector activity. The opportunity is there and I’m quite sure the private sector will find solutions,” he said.

Airbus’s Malinge added it was not only about pilots, but about everyone from top management to the bottom level. “It’s a matter of ensuring everyone has the right aviation experience. In this region, we have an increasing level of operations but with a variety of aviation backgrounds, in particular from the authorities.

“It leads to the challenge of having oversight capability to sustain this growth. It’s not only about pilots, mechanics and cabin crew. It’s also about the infrastructure, the ATC, Navaids and airport capability and its about the oversight authorities making sure they support the growth in an appropriate manner.

“We need to think about the big picture and the tens of millions of flights that will be performed every year. It is all about working better together. We have to invest in people and ensure everyone does support the growth.”

Tanaka said the industry, including regulators, must believe it can do better and that tomorrow can be safer than today. “There has to be good conversation between industry and government. We should enhance communication everywhere in the aviation community.”

Herdman said: “As an industry we support the ICAO ‘No Country Left Behind’ campaign, which aimed to address evident disparities in the quality of regulatory oversight amongst different states through improved implementation and compliance. It’s indefensible that you should have such low levels of compliance, but please don’t think we have acute safety problems. We don’t. The industry is in good shape.”