Middle East Safety Team to spearhead regional aviation safety plans

The Summit, jointly hosted by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) under the patronage of HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy prime minister of the UAE, emphasised that the most successful aviation safety initiatives have resulted from industry, regulators, manufacturers and other stakeholders working in tandem to address common safety issues.

The Middle East Safety Team will be comprised of industry and government stakeholders from across the region and will be co-chaired by government and industry partners on a rotational basis to ensure appropriate regional representation. HE Mohammed Abdullah Al Salami was elected the Safety Team's first chairman.

Mohammed Al Salami said: "The Abu Dhabi Summit draws a line in the sand for aviation safety in the region. Our priority will be to ensure that air safety in the Middle East becomes a paradigm for others to follow.

"Workshops held during the Summit have identified a number of crucial steps to achieving this goal including regulatory oversight and a cultural change that encourages transparency and incident reporting. This will follow the Danish pattern, which demonstrated that as incident reports increase, accidents decrease.

"We will also be addressing the chronic shortage of aviation professionals, providing training for existing personnel in safety management systems, the lack of qualifications of safety managers and auditing third party providers such as air navigation services," said Al Salami.

He said that a number of initiative were aimed at emerging risks, such as the advent of super large aircraft, aging fleets of first generation jets, and the rapid growth of aviation generally including commercial, military, UAVs (unmanned aviation vehicles) as well as private and business jets.

HE Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansoori, Minister of Development for Government Sector and chairman of the GCAA said: "The resolutions of the Abu Dhabi summit will provide a blueprint for others to follow. Already the agreement has been signed by representatives from Iraq, Sudan, the UAE, ICAO, EASA and the FSF and we are expecting many other who could not attend to endorse it in the near future".

HE Khalifa Al Mazrouei , chairman and managing director of co-hosts ADAC, said the Summit will help address both current and anticipated safety issues . "ADAC stands ready to play its part in taking forward the summit outcomes and making them a reality. The regulators, the aviation industry in this region along with ICAO and international communities should work together to ensure real and meaningful progress is made in the coming months"

In October this year the UAE, in cooperation with the ICAO, IATA and the FSF, will host a major summit to address the shortage of aviation professionals including pilots and air traffic controllers and steps that need to be taken to speed up their recruitment, training and retention.

The Aviation Safety Roadmap is a collaborative strategy designed by the ISSG to identify weaknesses and recommend enhancements in air safety. The members of the ISSG include the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); International Air Transport Association (IATA); Airport Council International (ACI); International Federation of Airlines Pilots Association (IFALPA); Flight Safety Foundation (FSF); Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO); and aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, all of whom were represented at the Summit.