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What are the costs of an aircraft accident? How do we measure the value of hundreds of people’s lives? Can we ever calculate the millions of Euros worth of damage? How should we calculate that cost and set it against the inevitable commercial cost of the investments necessary to avoid the tragedy in the first place?

These are the tough questions that will face the European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers in 2011 as they consider new sets of rules devised by the European Aviation Safety Agency in such diverse areas as aircraft and pilot licensing, National Aviation Safety Authority requirements, pilot fatigue protection rules and operational regulations.

The difficult question is whether a regulation that compromises safety will ever result in a better commercial outcome for airlines? Or does competition in the area of safety make irrelevant the question of which airline provides the best service and most competitive price?

ECA represents the pilots who are charged with delivering every safe flight, and we believe passengers don’t want to have to consider which airline is more or less likely to safely carry them to their destination. We believe it is the regulators’ job to remove these sorts of considerations from the list of concerns, allowing passengers to focus on the schedule and the level of service that competing airlines deliver.

Europe used to compete with North America to be the safest air transport region in the world – now we are third, behind Asia. As EASA develops as the continent’s safety regulator, we all need to urge it to put all other commercial, social and political considerations to one side and focus on their sole task of providing the highest, uniform, and scientifically justifiable safety regulation. If it achieves that goal, ECA will be its strongest supporter. But if EASA fails, and allows ill-informed political pressure or misguided commercial/social lobbies to affect their rule-making, then we will become the harshest critic.

ECA understands that all human activity carries a risk, and we are proud to be part of an industry that has reduced that risk to extremely low levels. Flying on a commercial airliner is one of the safest activities any citizen can undertake. Yet that is only because we have never been complacent. The regulator must continue to provide the highest, scientifically supported safety regulations and ensure comprehensive safety oversight and inspection. Only then will passengers be able to compare competitive offerings from competing airlines, comfortable in the knowledge that they are only choosing a level of service, not gambling with the level of safety.