Asia Pacific Aviation Maintains Improving Safety Trend

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – The air transport industry maintained its excellent safety record in 2010, further reinforcing the fact that flying is the safest form of travel.

The safety performance of major Asia Pacific airlines continues to show steady improvement and is fully comparable to the safety performance of the leading European and North American airlines.

Globally, for the year 2010 as a whole, there were 13 major accidents involving large western-built commercial airline jets, 8 of which resulted in a total of 555 fatalities, or one fatality for every 4 million passengers flown. With over twenty five million commercial jet flights operating annually worldwide, the result reflects an average aircraft loss rate of one major accident for every two million flights. The aircraft loss rate in 2010 was 21% lower than the average for the last 5 years, reflecting a trend of continuous improvement in air safety.

Mr. Andrew Herdman, Director General of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) commented “Safety is always our number one priority. Passengers can rest assured that air travel is both extremely safe and highly secure. As an industry we are committed to making further improvements in safety performance whilst meeting the expected growth in demand for air travel”.

Mr. Herdman added, “Safety is a shared responsibility. AAPA remains committed to working with regulatory agencies and other stakeholders to further strengthen cooperation, including the sharing of data and best safety management practices, with a particular emphasis on the need for governments to strengthen regulatory oversight in full compliance with agreed ICAO standards.”

ENDS

Office of the Director General

ASSOCIATION OF ASIA PACIFIC AIRLINES
9/F Kompleks Antarabangsa
Jalan Sultan Ismail
50250 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Tel +603-2145 5600
Fax +603-2145 2500
www.aapairlines.org