ALTA and IATA Officially Announce Joint Trend Sharing Program

Today, ALTA (Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association) and IATA (International Air Transport Association) signed into effect the ALTA-IATA Trend Sharing Program (AITSP), a joint effort to analyze, track and improve safety risks in the region while focusing resources on the key areas of concern.

The AITSP was signed by ALTA Executive Director, Alex De Gunten, and IATA Director General, Tony Tyler, during ALTA’s 8th Annual Airline Leaders Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which was attended by more than 500 leaders in the aviation industry.

The scope of the AITSP will include identifying opportunities for improvement, promoting the exchange of best practices and providing the ability to compare performance versus the rest of the industry

“As always, safety is ALTA’s number one priority. Our goal is for Latin American and Caribbean carriers to match or surpass the safety record of the US by 2014,” said Alex de Gunten, Executive Director of ALTA. “In conjunction with IATA, we are taking steps to further help curtail the region’s most critical safety concerns, such as runway excursions. While ALTA’s carriers have had no fatal accidents during the past three years, we are committed to ensuring improved safety standards across the region.”

“Safety is a team effort. This agreement is the first of its kind between IATA and a regional association and reflects our shared responsibility on aviation’s top priority-safety. Data is an important tool to focus our efforts in areas that matter most. Including all ALTA members in the Global Safety Information Centre (GSIC) will add an important dimension to our data collection. And even more importantly access to GSIC analysis will help us respond to safety trends in the Latin American and Caribbean region to make flying even safer,” Tony Tyler, IATA DG and CEO said.

ALTA and IATA originally presented the AITSP, which was endorsed unanimously by more than 40 airline representatives, during ALTA’s 2nd Pan American Aviation Safety Summit held earlier this year in Mexico City. The AITSP allows airlines to share and compare safety trend data. The base program will be using IATA’s GSIC.

Source: ALTA