JOHANNESBURG – Air Mauritius, Ethiopian Airlines, South Africa’s Nationwide Airlines and Precision Air have become the latest African carriers to achieve the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Operational Safety Audit registration.
All 4 carriers recently entered the IOSA Registry, bringing the number of IOSA Operators on the African continent to 9 and 147 worldwide. They join South African Airways, Kenya Airways, Comair, Royal Air Maroc and Egyptair.
IOSA is the global benchmark for airline safety management. It is designed to assess airline operational management and control systems based on internationally recognised standards. Any airline wishing to join IATA must be IOSA registered. By the end of this year, all IATA members must successfully undergo the IOSA audit in order to retain IATA membership. Carriers must achieve registration by the end of 2008. IOSA is open to all airlines.
Currently 16 African IATA member airlines (13 sub-Saharan and 3 North African) have scheduled audits in advance of the deadline with 2 remaining. IATA's Partnership for Safety programme launched in 2005 has helped most of these airlines implement IOSA through IATA-sponsored training courses and gap analyses.
IATA’s recently released 2006 Safety Report shows that IOSA, along with much-needed infrastructure improvements and technology upgrades, is improving safety levels in Africa. The global accident rate dropped to 0.65 Western built jet hull losses per million sectors in 2006 – the lowest rate ever. In Africa the accident rate dropped from 9.2 in 2005 to 4.31.
“Safety is our industry’s number one priority and last year was our safest year ever,” said IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani. “Africa has made good progress on safety, but the accident rate is still almost seven times the global average. We need all African airlines to get on board with IOSA. And we are encouraging governments to incorporate IOSA into their safety oversight programmes. So far, Madagascar and Egypt have moved forward on this and Nigeria and Tunisia are planning to do the same.”
Editors Notes:
- The IOSA programme is also designed to help airlines share audit resources and reduce the overall number of audits performed. Since its introduction, the industry has recorded savings of $28 million in audits avoided (465 audits avoided)
- IATA (International Air Transport Association) represents 250 airlines comprising 94% of international scheduled air traffic.
- As at April 25, 2007, 147 airlines were listed on the IOSA registry.
- Since the launch of IOSA in September 2003, 291 audits have been completed.