In an industry that is cost-focused and competitive, one facet of aviation should not be weaponized as a competitive business strategy: best practices for enhancing safety.
Our industry views safety within the context of managing risk to acceptable levels.1 Thus far, we have done an excellent job of identifying and mitigating the risks that are easily measurable (for example, the number of altitude violations, unstable approaches, engine failures). While the commitment and dedication thus far have been commendable, when considering our collective responsibility in managing safety risks, shouldn’t we also feel that it’s important to contemplate a way to measure compliance with standard operating procedures (SOPs) on a large scale? After all, SOP compliance, or any lack thereof, contributes to or degrades safety. Measuring large-scale SOP compliance is important, as is analyzing how we’re quantifying safety culture. For these reasons, it is important to ask: Are we analyz…
