In the wake of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370, the international organization of airlines wants better tracking of planes, the group’s CEO said Tuesday.
“In a world where our every move seems to be tracked, there is disbelief both that an aircraft could simply disappear and that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are so difficult to recover. Air France 447 brought similar issues to light a few years ago and some progress was made,” Tony Tyler, president and CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said during a keynote address Tuesday. “But that must be accelerated. We cannot let another aircraft simply vanish.”
Tyler wants his organization to facilitate a unified position on global tracking of aircraft among all airlines. He also called on governments to use of passenger data more effectively.
“In 2013, there were over 29 million flights operated on Western-built jet aircraft, with 12 hull losses,” Tyler said. “That is one accident for every 2.4 million flights and a 14.6 percent improvement on the five-year industry average. Accidents are rare, but the current search for MH370 is a reminder that we can never be complacent on safety.
“It may well a long time before we know exactly what happened on that flight,” Tyler said. “But it is already clear that we must never let another aircraft go missing in this way. And it is equally clear that governments must make better use of the passenger data that they mandate airlines to provide.”
