best safety record since the jet age began. In 1980, for example, the U.S. scheduled airline industry had an operating loss of almost $222 million. During that same year, as noted, there were no fatalities. During the period from October 1979 until January of 1982, there were no passenger fatalities in U.S. scheduled jet operations and there have been none since July of 1982.

As a society, we accept much higher levels of risk at home, in the car, and even at work. However, airlines and aviation by regulatory action are held to a higher standard of safety than most other forms of transportation. That higher standard is accepted as a reality by the people of the airlines, a fact of doing business in the aviation industry. Airline management and airline employees accept their commitment to safety above all else.

Section 601 of the Federal Aviation Act states that the FAA Administrator is empowered and it shall be his duty to promote safety of flight of civil aircraft in air commerce" by prescribing minimum standards. Section 604 gives the Administrator the power to issue air carrier operating certificates "and to establish minimum safety standards for the operation of the air carrier to whom any such certificate is issued."

Section 601 (b) of the Act places a statutory responsibility for safety with the airlines, stating in part, ". . The Administrator shall give full consideration to the duty resting upon air carriers to perform their services with the highest possible degree of safety in the public interest. . . ."

Section 605 allocates responsibility for safe maintenance - a crucial element clearly on the industry's shoulders. "It shall be the duty of each

of airline safety

air carrier to make, or cause to be made, such inspection, maintenance, overhaul, and

repair of all equipment used in air transportation as may be required by this Act. FAR 121.373 specifically requires that each airline have an approved maintenance program, including a system for reporting and analyzing reliability information.

A measure of the achievements of modern, sophisticated maintenance programs is the dispatch reliability rate that percentage of all revenue flights delayed for technical reasons no more than 15 minutes. The accompanying charts demonstrate clearly that through 1982, the most recent year for which complete data are available, dispatch reliability rates were either maintained or improved. The rates for widebody aircraft are still improving while those for the more mature narrowbody aircraft types have stabilized at better than 98%. The people of the airlines responsible for these achievements are highly trained and qualified individuals. The most critical personnel such as airframe and powerplant mechanics are licensed by the FAA.

Airlines, as well as FAA, are charged with guaranteeing safe flying operations. Our pilots and our flight attendants are among the most highly trained

and retrained professionals in any industry and our mechanics are among the world's best. The pilot-in-command of an airline flight has the final responsibility for deciding whether or not to fly. Aircraft dispatchers must insure that airliners depart only in airworthy conditions and with a flight crew briefed with all information necessary for safe flight. These dispatchers are also licensed by the government.

Aside from its broad statutory responsibility, the industry has other strong motivations to maintain excellent reliability and achieve the best safety records. A

good on-time performance record clearly is a competitive advantage in the deregulated marketplace.

As we have stated, air travel is safe, but we can never be complacent. That is why it is important for you to know that our goal will always be zero fatalities and no accidents.

We in the airline industry spend enormous amounts of time and money working always to better our record. Airlines work closely with each other and with manufacturers and regulators, notably the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, to assure the safety of air transportation. Let us conclude this report by suggesting to the committee in specific terms how we can work together government and industry to continue improving

the safety of air travel. We can work together to fully support the modernization of

our nation's airspace system the NAS plan

ensuring that it is fully funded, implemented and efficiently managed so as to provide aviation in this country the best technology for safety and efficiency.

Our current ATC system infrastructure is aging. Computers and other electronic systems are becoming more costly and difficult to maintain. The current system also has limited growth capacity. The NAS Plan addresses these problems. It must be implemented on the planned schedule to insure an adequate level of service to the public in light of growing demand and most importantly continued safety of operation. Some of the most significant safety enhancements called for in the NAS Plan include:

Improved survelliance of aircraft operating in the system
by use of the MODE S transponder, thus enabling ATC to
provide improved separation assurance service;

The ability to compute a conflict-free route of flight prior
to departure, thus permitting ATC to initially clear the
aircraft to follow a conflict-free flight path;

to insure

We can work together to make sure that when things do go wrong we carefully and fully analyze mistakes to learn how not to repeat them. We can put more emphasis on studying the human end of the man-machine relationship the study of so-called human factors. Towards that end, the industry was pleased when the NTSB announced that it was forming a Human Performance Division with a technical staff devoted to this important area.

ATA member airlines will work closely with FAA, NTSB, National Aeronautics & Space Administration, Society of Automotive Engineers and other government and industry organizations on human performance problems. A Cockpit Human Factors Task Force has been established within ATA to address cockpit workload, man-machine interface and resource management issues of interest in both current and future cockpit environments.

We are hopeful that the Congress will provide full funding of FAA's research and development request and NASA's aeronautics research request.

We should also look together at the growing list of new devices, materials and products spawned by technology that continues to advance in leaps and bounds. We need to examine these to make sure they safely fulfill clearly defined requirements without themselves creating an operational burden.

the traffic alert and collision avoidance system;

Wind shear detection and avoidance devices;

Ever more sophisticated and expensive training simulators
which have become so costly to acquire that many smaller
operators are unable to benefit from these valuable devices;

New display and data communications technology which makes
it possible to overwhelm the pilot with non-essential information.

We also need to reexamine our institutional systems for dissemination of critical safety information, including weather. FAA's Aviation Safety Analysis System is an important development intended to address this issue. Both government and industry will have to learn how to gain maximum benefit from the new capability. And we are pleased that FAA is reexamining the most efficient way to utilize their safety inspector workforce to identify weaknesses as early as possible and then to insure necessary corrective action is completed promptly.

We welcome the continuing interest of the Congress in helping to assure

the superlative safety record of air transportation.

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