Safety infrastructure under strain as Asian aviation booms

Amid the smoking exhaust ports, advanced avionics and parents taking photographs of their children in mock-up cockpits, real business deals are made at air-shows throughout the world.

The Singapore Airshow, Asia’s biggest, is no different. In 2014, 1,018 companies from 47 countries secured deals worth US$32 billion (Bt1.1 trillion) at the biannual showcase, a 3 per cent increase from the previous edition.

Increasing participation – 14 per cent more companies took part in2014 compared to 2012 – is one of many indications that Asia’s aviation sector has flourished in recent years.

Asia’s fleet of commercial aircraft has doubled in the last decade to nearly 6,000, plane manufacturers Airbus and Boeing estimate.

Airlines in the Asia-Pacific will need 12,500-to-15,000 new aircraft in the coming 20 years, the firms predict.

“If you look at the traffic growth and manufacturers’ forecasts, then it is pretty clear that Asia-Pacific is the engine driving global airliner sales these days,” says Tim Robinson, the editor-in-chief of Aerospace Magazine.

But behind the unprecedented growth in air travel, there are growing concerns that Asia’s safety infrastructure is not keeping up.

An International Air Transport Association (IATA) safety report for 2014 showed there were 14 aviation accidents in the Asia Pacific, more than any other region in the world.

Last year saw improvement for Asian airlines, according to the latest IATA report released on Monday, but the region still had a higher rate of serious jet crashes per flight than Europe or North America.

While Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and Australia’s Qantas have topped recent aviation safety rankings, the German-based Jacdec aviation database puts five Asian airlines in the bottom six of its 2016 safety ranking.

Regulatory oversights and weak safety management systems were the areas most responsible for air traffic accidents in Asia between 2010 and 2014, the IATA has said.

“The regulators ... have not kept up with the manpower and technical capacity needed to regulate so many aircraft and flights” says Alan Khee-Jin Tan, a professor specialising in aviation law at the National University of Singapore. Poor regulation has become an acute problem for Thailand, one of the region’s biggest tourist destinations.

Thailand’s aviation authority was downgraded separately by the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and by the US Federal Aviation Administration in 2015.

The US body deemed that Thailand “lacks laws or regulations necessary to oversee air carriers in accordance with minimum international standards”. The other area highlighted by the IATA – the lack of a systematic approach to managing safety – includes problems with training and maintenance.

“The boom in aircraft orders means that there is a shortage of notonly pilots, but maintenance personnel,” Tan says. 

Flying schools in Indonesia – which has had a persistently poor record on aviation safety – are struggling to cope with a demand for some 600 new pilots every year.

After the crash of AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Indonesia in December 2014, investigators called for better pilot training for unexpected situations during flight.

Black box recordings revealed, among other issues, “ambiguous commands” by the pilot and co-pilot when they were faced with a malfunctioning rudder control system. The aircraft’s maintenance record found 23 occurrences of rudder problems in the last 12 months, but the problem was left unresolved.

Observers highlight two other areas of concern for air passengers in Asia: the expansion of low-cost carriers (LCC) and the physical infrastructure at airports across the region.

“Safety doesn’t come cheap and does require investment in training, maintenance and equipment – even if you are a ‘low-cost’ carrier,” says Robinson.

“You can have a slick marketing campaign, great social media and superb prospects for growth but it only takes one accident to damage your reputation and brand.”

The investigations by ICAO revealed severe gaps in safety standards.

Even basic things like having a physical manual was found lacking for some of these budget airlines,” says Pichaya Waithayak, an aviation consultant and former pilot at Thai Airways.

The growth in LCCs may be a “blessing in disguise” however, Pichaya adds. “This unprecedented growth is also prompting unprecedented inspections.” LCCs in the region point out that safety is a top priority for them.

Kamarudin Meranun, co-founder and group chief executive of AirAsia X – a company in the AirAsia group, said in a statement that safety was a “core value” of the firm. 

“AirAsia X operates according to the most stringent standards in the industry,” he said.

Infrastructure, meanwhile, is “at breaking point” at some major regional hubs, particularly at Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta and Manila Ninoy Aquino Airports, with smaller airports also a concern, Tan says.

“The growth of LCCs and aviation in the region means that these smaller airports will get much more traffic,” Pichaya says. “There are horror stories that pilots share about these smaller hubs, whether its wildlife wandering on the runway or non-existent landing lights.”

Most analysts agree that governments across Southeast Asia are beginning to take steps to meet safety standards.

Thailand’s military government set up a task force to meet the challenges of the ICAO downgrade.

A similar step by the Filipino government several years ago resulted in the ICAO removing the country from its “significant safety watch list” in 2013.

“I believe the political will is there,” says Tan. “This will be a huge challenge, but is absolutely necessary.”