FAA administrator discusses safety strategy improvements with airline CEOs

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has held a meeting with airline CEOs to ‘discuss the current state of the US aviation system and find ways to continuously improve safety,’ the regulator reports. FAA administrator Mike Whitaker chaired a discussion with representatives from Alaska, American, Delta, United, JetBlue, Southwest, UPS and FedEx to ‘ensure the industry continues expanding safety management systems and finding ways to share information transparently to minimize risk and advance safety’. “Data is crucial to identifying and mitigating significant risks and emerging safety trends, allowing us to move toward a more predictive system,” he highlighted, adding: “Today we discussed the need for more access to real time data and better tools to detect and manage risk within our aviation system”. Describing aviation safety as a “team sport,” he reinforced the need to “constantly re-examine processes and procedures” as well as how data is best used to detect risks and introduce more transparency. “Maintaining safety and public confidence in the aviation system is not static,” Whitaker concluded.