Aviation industry sees fewer fatalities, says IATA report

09 May 2008

New Delhi: The 2007 global air accident rate of 0.75 hull losses for every million flights by Western-built jet aircraft rose slightly to the 2006 avetrage of 0.65, largely the result of accidents in Africa, Indonesia and to some extent Brazil.  In its 44th annual safety report released today The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said member airlines had performed better than the industry average with an accident rate of 0.68 hull losses per million flights.

IATA represnts 240 airlines comprising 94 per cent of scheduled international traffic.

The number of global fatalities declined 19 per cent from 855 to 692, even as passenger numbers increased by 6 per cent to over 2.2 billion passengers in 2007. In absolute numbers, there were 100 accidents in 2007 (57 jet, 43 turboprop) compared with 77 accidents in 2006 (46 jet, 31 turboprop).

''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,'' said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's director general and CEO.

The IATA operational safety audit (IOSA) is the global standard for airline safety management and a key tool in driving further improvements in global safety.  All IATA carriers are required to complete audits and close all findings to join the IOSA Registry by the end of 2008.

Bisignani said, ''Making IOSA a condition of IATA membership is a strong commitment by the industry to raise the bar on safety even higher. Our partnership for safety programmes are in place to help our members meet the standards and join the registry.  Safety is our number one priority and starting in 2008, IATA will finance the costs of the IOSA audits for its members. The results are transparent on www.iata.org/registry for all to see. And we will be tough. By the end of the year, carriers are either on the registry, or they are out of IATA.''