Mistaken Assumptions

This is a bit of a confession. I had a seat at the table when the international community debated how safety management systems (SMS) would fit into the international regulatory framework. My colleagues and I missed something really big. We all assumed that the industry would stay the same, that airlines would retain their nationalities like they had for the previous 60 years. Everything was built on the assumption that each country would have a regulator that would oversee multiple airlines, each holding a single air operator certificate (AOC) and each with its own SMS. Each SMS would be run by an accountable executive who would set safety targets and proactively manage risk. The accountable executive would report to the regulator, who would make sure the executive was doing a responsible job and ensure that the efforts of the airlines would achieve a target level of safety for that country that would satisfy the flying public. These all seemed like reasonable assumptions at the time,…