The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced the launch of the IATA Safety Leadership Charter at the IATA World Safety and Operations Conference taking place in Hanoi, Vietnam. Safety leaders from more than 20 airlines are the first signatories:

• Air Canada                                Emirates Airline                                     Philippine Airlines
• Air India                                    Ethiopian Airlines                                  Qantas Group
• Air Serbia                                 EVA Airways                                        Qatar Airways
• ANA                                         Garuda Indonesia Airlines                     TAROM
• British Airways                          Hainan Airlines                                     United Airlines
• Carpatair                                  Japan Airlines                                       Vietnam Airlines
• Cathay Pacific                           Pegasus Airlines                                   Xiamen Airlines
• Delta Air Lines

The Safety Leadership Charter is aimed at strengthening organizational safety culture through commitment to eight key safety leadership guiding principles. It was developed in consultation with IATA members and the wider aviation community to support industry executives in evolving a positive safety culture within their organizations.

“Leadership matters. It’s the strongest factor affecting safety behavior. By signing up to the IATA Safety Leadership Charter, these industry leaders are visibly demonstrating their commitment to the criticality of safety culture within their own airlines and the need to continuously build on the work that has gone before,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

Safety Leadership Guiding Principles include:

• Leading the obligation to safety through both words and actions.
• Fostering safety awareness among employees, the leadership team, and the board.
• Creating an atmosphere of trust, where all employees feel responsible for safety and are encouraged and expected to report safety-related information.
• Guiding the integration of safety into business strategies, processes, and performance measures and creating the internal capacity to manage and achieve organizational safety goals.
• Regularly assessing and improving organizational Safety Culture.

“Commercial aviation has benefited from over 100 years of safety advances that inspires us to raise the bar even higher. The commitment and drive by aviation’s leaders for continuous improvement on safety is a longstanding pillar of commercial aviation that has made flying the safest form of long-distance travel. Signing this charter honors the achievements that should give everyone the highest confidence when flying and sets a powerful and timely reminder that we can never be complacent on safety,” said Nick Careen, IATA’s Senior VP Operations, Safety and Security.