Contemporary Challenges in Aviation Industry

Aviation and Security: Management Perspective

The globalization has made the world a smaller place with information transcending the hitherto boundaries that stopped free flow of information as well as increased travel across the world. The increased traveling due to availability of the means of travel heaped a lot of pressure on the aviation industry, especially the management to ensure that security is maintained and the commuting through the various airports and through the airspaces is seamless, safe and uninterrupted, providing convenience to passengers and goods alike. The management levels at the airports hence have a heavy task of ensuring the free flow of traffic and the following is an extrapolation of how the management can and have contributed to aviation security in general.

The management must describe and make the staff members understand the four pillars of safety within the aviation industry. Once the staff members understand these four pillars, it will then be easy to implement them and enhance security accordingly. The management needs to have policies, procedures and organizational structures that will help in accomplishing their goals inline with the safety of their areas of jurisdiction. The policies need to be well explained to the employees and well understood for effective implantation. The policies that the oversight bodies put in place ensure that there is uniformity and harmony in operations across the industry, in effect avoiding uncertainties when it comes to what measures need to be taken to ensure safety and the management needs to help in actualizing these policies. The managers also need to adopt the Safety Risk Management (SRM) approach in the contemporary aviation industry. There needs to be a system of hazard identification and controlling the risk to acceptable levels. The managers also need have safety assurance which is a follow-up measure to the SRMs, otherwise referred to as mitigations, which once they are established and operational, the safety assurance need to be upheld by management to ensure that the controls continue to be effective in a changing environment. Safety assurance is one important pillar that ensures safety management is not a one off event but a continuous event and practice that acts as a prevention of any possible dangers and also the necessary improvements baring in mind the constantly changing security aspects and global environment. The other significant pillar that management have to ensure is implanted is safety promotion which the managers need to uphold as a core value with efforts that support the safety culture (ICAO, 2009). The management needs to have safety as part of the culture of the organization. The constant reminding of the staff and clients of the significance of the safety within the airport is very central to constantly ensuring that each individual is safe and no relapses hence making a significant pillar to safety management. It is incumbent on the management to ensure that there is not just the ability for production of the services and products that are essential within the aviation industry, but also to offer protection. The management has to, on top of the products or services that are useful, offer protection since it is the responsibility of the management of each operator to provide safe service or product and live up to the statutory safety responsibilities (U.S. Department of Transport, 2010:Pp7).

The management within the aviation industry needs to ensure that the requisite guidelines that are stipulated by the responsible bodies like FAA are followed. Apart from the guidelines given by the oversight bodies, a good manager will also fortify the compliance and safety of his staff by engaging in voluntary system in the SMS which are the aspects that help or aids in the compliance to the oversight regulations hence are not mandatory but can run in a complementary manner with the oversight (U.S. Department of Transport, 2010:Pp19).

The Safety Risk Management (SRM) is key in ensuring that possible dangers are identified early in time and eliminated to an extent that the operators do not expose the travelers and other operators to eminent dangers. The managers are central in ensuring that the guidelines as given above are implemented and followed by the members of staff to actualize the ultimate aim of the SMS.