How safe is global air travel?

By Timothy Ijala

The crash of an airbus A310-300 owned by Yemenia (Yemeni Airways) near Comoros Islands on 30 June barely a month after another tragic crash of an Air France A330 Airbus flight 447 enroute from Rio de Janeiro to Paris which killed all 228 people onboard raises questions about air travel safety. The Yemenia aircraft with over 150 people onboard was enroute from Sana’a to Moroni, in the Comoros when it went down in bad weather in the Indian Ocean Archipelago. Only one person, a 14 year old girl is known to have survived. According to French air officials the plane had been banned from the country’s airspace after numerous faults were discovered in a 2007 inspection. But Yemenia executives have said that the airline passed international safety audits in the spring of 2008 and that the plane in question underwent a thorough maintenance check in May.

So how safe is flying especially with quite a number of these planes still in operation?

Air travel is (in most areas of the world) the most heavily regulated form of transportation. Safety considerations have top priority in all operations. That is why organisations like the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a UN specialized agency and the global forum for civil aviation, exist.

Addressing air safety investigators in the U.S, Nicholas A Sabatini, Associate administrator for Aviation safety said about aviation safety in the developed world, “You must fly every day for 43,000 years to get to an even chance of being killed in an airline accident. Or how about: An accident with fatalities occurs about every 15 to 16 million flights. Or try this: You are about 40 times safer in an airliner than on the safest highway system in the country (the Interstate).” Yes, aircraft accidents are terrible, but they are very rare, largely thanks to improved technology, better manufacturing, smarter training and many other advances. However the U.S is not the only country where Air travel safety is treated seriously.

According to the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), “air transport is one of the safest forms of travel.” It adds that “As air traffic continues to grow a common initiative is needed at the European level to keep air transport safe and sustainable. The Agency develops common safety and environmental rules at the European level. It monitors the implementation of standards through inspections in the Member States and provides the necessary technical expertise, training and research.”

Last year the Director General and CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Mr Giovanni Bisignani said of air travel, “Air travel is the safest mode of transportation. In the ten years from 1998, the accident rate was reduced by almost half - from 1.34 accidents per million flights to 0.75. And the number of fatalities dropped significantly in 2007. That’s good news. But our goal is always to do better: zero fatalities and zero accidents.”

Africa reportedly still had the worst safety record in the world of 4.09 hull losses (An aircraft damaged to the extent that it is not economically feasible to repair it) per million flights. According to Mr Bisignani, “It is still six times less safe to fly in Africa than the rest of the world.”

One reason maybe as one U.S official is quoted as having said, “just wholesale disregard for safety.” However IATA is working to improve the safety record of member airlines in Africa. And the future looks promising.

In its 2009 annual report IATA says that “the fatality rate for air travel in 2008 was at its lowest level since 2004 at 0.13 per million passengers.”

The question therefore is not about the safety of air travel. To put it in the words of United States Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood; regaining the public's confidence in air travel, on every plane at every airport, is imperative. Speaking at an air- safety summit Mr LaHood said, "Let this be a wake-up call: We can and we must regain the public's trust," he said. "We must inspire confidence in every traveller, every time he or she steps on a commercial aircraft of any size at any airport in our country. This is an enormous responsibility and one that I consider my highest duty to uphold."