“Europe ’s
airline pilots and air traffic controllers warmly welcome the adoption of this
report”, says Nico Voorbach, ECA President. “The pro-safety stance developed by
the EP rapporteur Mrs de Veyrac – and vigorously supported by her colleagues
within the Transport Committee – is remarkable. A true safety culture is one
that recognizes that it can always improve. MEPs have understood this and
introduced valuable improvements to an already good proposal by the EU
Commission.”
In view of the forthcoming
inter-institutional negotiations, Alexis Brathwaite, IFATCA President & CEO
states: “EU Ministers must now take note of the will of Europe’s citizens and
aviation experts and start putting more emphasis on safety. This was the clear
message of today’s Parliament Transport Committee vote.”
With this vote the EU
Transport Committee remains consistent and coherent in its approach to
improving occurrence reporting in Europe and
goes in the opposite direction of EU Transport Ministers who watered down the
text in June. The Transport Committee supported provisions to ensure that
aviation safety professionals – such as pilots and air traffic controllers –
are protected when reporting any mishaps or mistakes and that the information
they provide is not misused. These provisions would help to set up a
comprehensive framework for collection and analysis of aviation incident data,
which is critical to identifying the pertinent safety risks in aviation. The
proposed Occurrence Reporting Regulation, with the changes adopted by the
Parliamentarians, is a solid basis for developing a genuine, robust Just
Culture environment across Europe .
