EDITOR’S EYE: Aviation heading in the right direction
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The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released a report last week stating that 2010 was the safest year on record for passenger aviation. Hull losses for the 12-month period were down to one per 1.6 million flights which, I’m sure you’ll agree, sounds like pretty good going. Even for people gripped by the most severe sense of pessimism, or ravaged by a crippling fear of flying, odds of 1.6 million-to-one should be enough to set the mind at ease.
As I wrote in TDA at the time however, the figures appear to be a little misleading. Last year there were actually more fatal accidents and more overall fatalities in plane crashes than in 2009. So what can the average flyer in Asia Pacific take from this?
Asia Pacific’s accident rate was actually higher than the global average in 2010, but it did include two somewhat anomalous incidents. The Henan Airlines crash in northern China in August was the first fatal air crash in China for nearly six years, while the Air India Express crash at Mangalore was the first serious incident in India since 2000. Given that moneybags China is planning to purchase 700 brand new planes, as well as putting a huge amount into its aviation infrastructure, I think we can say that air safety in China is in pretty good hands.
And the trend of fleet modernisation is being repeated across the region. As low-cost carriers take a dominant role in regional market, companies like AirAsia, Tiger Airways, IndiGo, Cebu Pacific and Firefly are rolling out brand new, state-of-the-art jets all the time. These clean, quiet modern jets seem to take off and land effortlessly. The days when taking a short-haul, low-cost flight within Asia was a noisy, Indiana Jones-style white-knuckle ride are, for the most part at least, over.
Of course I’m in dangerous territory here; this is not a subject to be treated lightly. As IATA head, Giovanni Bisignani said in the report; “Every fatality
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