ANSPs proud of their achievements to drive safety management best practice

Following the completion of the annual EUROCONTROL/CANSO Safety Management System (SMS) Maturity Assessment, 12 ANSPs have been awarded Best Practices for safety management, with a further 10 ANSPs being awarded Good Practices.

By taking part in the annual SMS maturity assessment, ANSPs have had the chance to have their safety management practices assessed by EUROCONTROL’s assessor team which comprise of a global group of their peers. Those practices that are judged to have met the relevant criteria are awarded Best and Good Practices, as appropriate.

Some of this year’s best practice recipients were:

• Airways New Zealand for its development of Safety Performances Indicators
• Nav Portugal for the development of measuring safety practices within its Model of ATM reality in Action (MARIA) platform
• Nav Canada’s connecting the dots safety plan for 2024
• AirNav Ireland’s Safety Performance and Risk Monitoring methodology
• The FAA’s safety and technical training programme

Details of these practices were shared at the recent CANSO Global Safety Conference in Dublin, and the slides from each presentation can be accessed, by CANSO Members, here.

Heather Henderson, Director, Safety Strategy and SMS Programs, NAV CANADA, is co-chair of CANSO’s Safety Programme’s Next Generation Safety Management Workgroup said: “The safety maturity assessment gives ANSPs a clear picture of where they are in terms of their safety practices. It positions them to continue to do the things they are doing well, and identify those areas, through peer review, where they can do better.

“All of the identified best and good practices are shared, in detail, in Skybrary, and I recommend anyone with an interest in safety go check them out, and watch for details, later this spring, of this year’s SMS maturity assessment exercise.  Regardless of the maturity of an ANSP’s SMS, there is always an opportunity to learn and improve through this exercise.”

NAV CANADA’s Vice President and Chief Safety and Quality Officer, Mackay, chair of the CANSO Safety Programme Steering Group, added: “Having access to ANSPs through the CANSO Safety Standing Committee is key to driving our internal safety programmes forward at NAV CANADA. While our safety management systems have been in place since the early 2000s, being challenged by the best practices of others pushes our programs to higher levels. None of us alone are great at every aspect of safety and human performance, but by learning from others, ALL ANSPs can move their programmes to an elevated, safer level by targeting our individual areas of weakness.”