Supporting your voice – a message from the board

Aviation boosts the economy, opens new markets, and provides access to essential services for millions of African citizens. Flight safety is at the heart of this. To a certain extent it should be invisible. When all is working well, the benefit is a safe aviation system with many millions of passengers every year across the African continent reaching their destinations safely. Flight safety remains at the heart of everything we do.

But this can also be our biggest challenge. It is not always obvious where the system, and the safety barriers, need to be reinforced, even when you fulfil the roles within the system as professionally as you do. We remain one of the most regulated industries in the world. However, the evolution of the Safety Management System (SMS) recognizes this is not sufficient on its own to drive flight safety performance in all sectors and regions of the world. As a safety foundation our role, your role, is to keep flight safety at the forefront of our stakeholder’s agendas. No matter the improvement in flight safety performance we must never let our guard down. This relies upon every aviation professional.

One of the most important roles therefore of our Foundation is reflected in our high-quality training courses and online Focus sessions. The courses are designed to be accessible to the African community we serve. Our teams of volunteers provide their expertise in human factors, maintenance, flight operations, dispatch, incident investigation and many other aspects of commercial aircraft operation. This knowledge and experience are at your disposal. We are progressively becoming a voice for aviation professionals to promote best practices, and share experiences and learning. There is no such thing as an isolated accident. The contributing factors already exist. Speaking up is one of the pillars of SMS and a strong flight safety culture in every organisation.

I again take this opportunity to thank our volunteers and staff and all those who attend our training courses. Your dedication is inspiring. There is no Foundation without your hard work and commitment to our objectives. The AviAssist Foundation in its day-to-day activities is connecting professionals across Africa and Europe. Let’s continue to spread the message that Flight Safety is a shared goal without borders.
From a Board perspective our objective must be to sustain this great work in the years to come, identify opportunities to expand, bringing the message to an ever-increasing audience and maximize the support for AviAssist staff and volunteers.