ASMS: Quality Assurance
Introduction
The current aviation industry is experiencing a constant increase in the number of complex and diverse networks of government or business organizations in addition to an increase the advancement of equipment used for aircraft development. As a result of the change, the organizations are required to continually adapt to the meet the required relevance and viability. Collection and analysis of data in the aviation industry have a vital role to play. Airline companies are required to take advantage of the useful information generated by analysis of different forms of data in the reduction of equipment downtime and improvement of operational efficiencies.
Use of data collection, analysis and trending in program planning processing
Data collection and processing in the aviation industry is a very important tool for the companies in this industry to conduct the internal evaluation of the company’s Safety Management System (SMS). Through such evaluations, the company is able to determine whether SMS is in line with its expectations and objectives. The company should take into account the findings of the evaluations performed on a previous date. Furthermore, there is a need to use the data carefully to ensure that the safety criticality of the program under evaluation is put into account. A well guided data collection, processing and trending in the aviation industry can bring revolution in the evaluations defined in aviation companies (Vinshnu, 2014).
Aviation companies are now collecting data using sensors that gather information about the nearby environment as well as jet engines. The data collected about the surroundings may include air pressure, humidity and temperature. This data can be ...
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...rcraft movement. Like in any other industry, high level of safety in the aviation industry should be a top priority. Safety in this industry is known to improve customer satisfaction, which is accompanied by an increase in the number of customers for the specific airline company.
References
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The airline industry is classified into four categories by the Department of Transportation. The four categories are International, National, Regional and Cargo. The following are issues that affect the airline industry to some extent: airport capacity, routes, technology, aircraft purchase or lease costs, weather, fuel costs and labor. An estimate of up to 40% of an airline’s expenses is related to paying their employees.
According to the International Air Transport Association, 2001 was only the second year in the history of civil aviation in which international traffic declined. Overall, it is believed that the IATA membership of airlines collectively lost more than US$12 billion during this time (Dixon, 2002).
After World War II there was an excess of aircraft and trained pilots in the United States, which significantly increase in private and commercial flights. An increase in the use of private aircraft and large passenger planes meant an increase in the possibly of aircraft safety incidents. Even though safety measures had been put in place to tend to large number of aircraft in the skies, in late 1950’s there were two unfortunate accidents that finally led to legislation that would be a major change to the world of aviation that affects us even today. The introduction of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 spurred several changes in aviation that eventually led to the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration.
As airline industry is a competitive marketplace, the airline companies use new technologies to improve their efficiency and decrease the overhead costs, including ‘advanced aircraft engine technology, IT solutions, and mobile technology’ (Cederholm 2014). The technology changes including technology improvement, new innovation and disruptive technology. The disruptive technology need to meet the characteristics of ‘simplicity, convenience, accessibility and affordability’ (Christensen 1995). The technology changes would bring both opportunities and threats to airline companies. Since Labour cost and fuel costs occupy 50% of most airlines operating cost (Groot 2014). Therefore, if new technologies could be disruptive in the two aspects, there will be important changes to current airline
Airport planning, once carried out utilizing a single future forecast, failed to account for the complexity and uncertainty of the aviation industry. Today, it is widely assumed airport success can only be met through the utilization of a flexible, integrated planning approach that sees forecasts as incorrect.
The airline industry has long attempted to segment the air travel market in order to effectively target its constituents. The classic airline model consists of First Class, Business Class and Economy, and the demographics that make up the classes have both similarities and differences to the other classes. For instance there may be similarities between business class travellers on a particular flight, but they will not all be travelling for the same reason. An almost-universal characteristic of air travel is that customers do not fly for the sake of flying; the destination is the important element and the travel is a by-product, a means-to-an-end that involves the necessity of an aircraft that gets the customer from point A to point B. Because the reasons can differ greatly in the motivations for a customer wanting to fly, it can be difficult to divide the market into discrete segments, that is, there is always going to be overlap in the preferences and characteristics of any given segment. With that in mind, the commonalities that are shared between the clientele that make up the respective classes can easily withstand analysis.
Airline and travel industry profitability has been strapped by a series of events starting with a recession in business travel after the dotcom bust, followed by 9/11, the SARS epidemic, the Iraq wars, rising aviation turbine fuel prices, and the challenge from low-cost carriers. (Narayan Pandit, 2005) The fallout from rising fuel prices has been so extreme that any efficiency gains that airlines attempted to make could not make up for structural problems where labor costs remained high and low cost competition had continued to drive down yields or average fares at leading hub airports. In the last decade, US airlines alone had a yearly average of net losses of $9.1 billion (Coombs, 2011).
... problem are under constant development and analysis, in a hope to avoid these situations. The civilian industry continues to lead in development due to commercialization, with the military not far behind. The only real deficiency in CRM program development seems to be the area of general aviation as described earlier. Until this problem is addressed, there will still be a glaring weakness in the general area of aviation safety. However, with the rate of technology increase and cheaper methods of instruction, we should begin to see this problem addressed in the near future. Until then, aviation will rely on civil commercial aviation the military to continue research and program development for the years to come, hopefully resulting in an increasingly safe method of travel and recreation.
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...ing dangerous icing conditions. Flight is an amazing science that will only get safer as time goes on.
a. Environmental Analysis: The international war on terror, with its attendant rising cost of oil has created havoc in a number of ways (Lufthansa Annual Report, 2004). Rising costs have resulted from the increase in fuel prices. Customer check-in wait times and flight time delays have resulted from new regulations designed to ensure passenger and plane safety, including more rigorous bag searches, more extensive passenger screening, and the like. This has resulted in customers paying higher prices and a less enjoyable flight experience.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA). 2014. Airline Cost Performance. IATA Economics Briefing. [report] IATA, p. 31.
Through the years, as aircraft have become more complex, and numerous threats to aviation safety have been identified, a culture of unwavering professionalism and safety consciousness have become engrained into the ethical framework of aviation organizations. Since the initial establishment aviation operational and safety standards, multiple civilian and military aviation organizations have continuously contributed efforts towards looking for new and innovative ways to raise the bar on efficiency of flight operations and aviation safety through CRM. CRM is a vital tool to improving safety in aviation organizations and i...
Finally to conclude this report, the safety management system in an organization is very important as this forms the basic framework on how the organization works, maintaining safety. The four pillars (main objectives of SMA) are that ones that lead the organization in that direction. From the accident, the four pillars application will benefit the organization but however if the SMS has been a part of the organization even before, accidents as such would not have occurred in the first place.