Background related to Air Carrier (AC) operating Commercial Air Transport

Since the introduction of regulation 965/2012 European Operators have been working within the guidelines of a Safety Management System.

With the introduction of EASA Part CAMO, the SMS will be extended to cover also CAMO activities. An immediate challenge relates to the competence of existing Airline SMS Managers.

Let’s get real!

Question – Is SMS is all about Compliance?
Answer – No – It’s about Managing Risk.

Safety management goes far beyond traditional compliance led approaches to auditing.
So a Safety Management System has to identify potential safety risks and Hazards. At the heart of any effective Safety Management System is a formal Risk Management process that identifies hazards and assesses and mitigates risk.
The next step is to mitigate or manage any risks identified to an acceptable or tolerable level. An essential aspect being the management of risk generated by Contract or Sub Contracted organization particularly where this may directly impact the organization.

Question – Is SMS is just an extension of the Quality System?
Answer – No – Safety Auditing is very different. In fact Safety Auditing is very subjective, almost holistic. Safety Auditing is looking at Risk or in other words the potential exposures, faced by the Organisational system.