The Foundation’s 70th annual International Air Safety Summit (IASS) in Dublin was a success by any measure, attracting more than 360 attendees, 19 sponsors, 26 exhibitors and a lineup of compelling and thought-provoking presenters and speakers, including International Airlines Group Chief Executive Willie Walsh. The event wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of hard work by the Foundation events staff, and by Conor Nolan and the good folks at host sponsor Aer Lingus. Thanks to everyone for the time, effort and resources put into making IASS 2017 one of the Foundation’s best events ever.
Coming as it often does in the fourth quarter, IASS usually is the last major event the Foundation organizes during the year. There still is a lot to do between now and Dec. 31, including the two-day Flight Operations Risk Assessment System (FORAS) workshop we are co-hosting with EVA Air in Taipei on Nov. 29–30, but the bulk of the Foundation’s work program for 2017 is complete and planning is well under way for 2018.
There is not room here to list all of the places the Foundation staff, committee members and board members have traveled this year on behalf of the Foundation and its objectives, but we have been on the road a lot, meeting and working with members and industry stakeholders around the world. We have organized two major summits — IASS and the Business Aviation Safety Summit — and a number of smaller, but no less compelling, seminars, including the Singapore Aviation Safety Seminar and the annual Safety Forum. We also have hosted our own Board of Governors meetings, the SKYbrary Supervisory Board, our advisory committees and the U.S. Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST).
In addition to our ongoing work with CAST, the Foundation is a member of the Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team, we participated in the Federal Aviation Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems — Identification and Tracking Aviation Rulemaking Committee, and we’re part of a group working on the next iteration of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) Global Aviation Safety Plan.
Our work with ICAO dovetails nicely with our ongoing Global Safety Information Project (GSIP). In September, we completed year three of GSIP and now we are putting the finishing touches on the next iteration of our GSIP toolkits and expect to have them published for public consumption before the end of the year. The draft versions are available now for review and comment by Foundation members on our website. Year four on GSIP already has begun and we’re working on plans for future years. Thanks very much to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for its ongoing support of this important project.
In addition to the safety issues we are working on, the Foundation also is continuing to look for new and better ways to serve its members. For example, this year we launched our new AeroSafety World mobile app and added some enhancements to the new website that debuted in 2016. In addition, we added unmanned aircraft systems as a membership category and added dozens of new members to the Foundation. The Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS) program continues to grow and a few weeks ago, recorded its 500th BARS audit. Stage 2 of the BARS program launched in late October, and is scheduled for implementation Jan. 1, 2018.
