Aviation Standard Keeps Contracted Aircraft Flying During COVID-19

Melbourne, Australia- Vital contracted repatriation and humanitarian flights are being kept in the skies during COVID-19 border lockdowns with remote monitoring and virtual safety audits.

The Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS) Program now uses video conferencing to continue operating and provide safety confidence to contracted flight crews and passengers.

BARS Program Managing Director David Anderson said the need for the standard to evolve had never been more pertinent in its 10-year mission of getting people home safely than right now.

“BARS is a collaborative industry initiative that amalgamates and shares safety audit information between members to promote safety among companies globally,” Mr Anderson said.

“In a global crisis situation like COVID-19, we are continuing to ensure standards are met for businesses and governments contracting aircraft and support aircraft operators meet compliance obligations – remotely.”

The new remote monitoring and virtual safety audits exemplifies the BARS Program’s leadership in the contract aviation industry and evolution over the past decade, prior to which there were no clear benchmarks for companies to assess the safety of owned or outsourced air operations.

Because organisations with BARS membership share audit information, they also share the cost of auditing, with subscriptions to the globally recognized standard costing $50,000 instead of incurring independent contract aircraft audit costs, which could exceed $3 million annually.

As part of BARS’s ongoing commitment to the safety of contracted aircrafts and aviation industry, the Flight Safety Foundation is subsidizing remote monitoring fees.

Created by the Flight Safety Foundation in collaboration with some of the world’s largest resource and mining companies, the BARS Program provides more efficient safety risk monitoring, assessing and analyzing of contracted operators.

“Without the BARS Program, and now our remote monitoring and virtual safety audit solutions, companies in a range of different sectors would need to wait months in the current climate for an auditor to be able to physically travel to conduct an assessment of an aircraft operator,” Mr Anderson said.

“We are proud to be part of global effort to bring people home safely now more than ever before in our 10 year history.”

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For more information, please contact Kate Cullen (Cole Lawson Communications) on +61 7 3221 2220 or email kate.cullen@colelawson.com.au.

About Flight Safety Foundation the Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS) Program

Flight Safety Foundation is an independent, international and impartial non-profit that exists to champion the cause of aviation safety. The Foundation established the Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS) Program in 2010 to review aviation operators providing aviation services to the resources and other sectors. The BARS Program is made up of a suite of risk-based aviation industry standards with supporting implementation guidelines.

The BARS Program has operated for 10 years, with more than 757 audits in 37 different countries for more than 212 aircraft operators. As a result, about 214,357 questions have been asked as part of our structured audits, identifying some 15,359 non-conformities.