It’s always a balance

It’s always a balance — you have to make money; you have to stay on schedule; moving people is your goal. But you have to get them there safely.

Captain Sheryl Clarke
Director of safety, security and compliance, ExpressJet Airlines.

While there are some concerns with SMS, it’s nice to see a senior airline SMS manager publicly (in Flying magazine online) acknowledge that safety is not number one. Moving people is the goal. Safety is risk management. Safety is a balance.

 sms-idealistic-needs

“Safety is our number one value” and other trite soundbites initially sound good, until you try to apply that in practice. Moving metal is how aviation makes money, it’s our reason for existence (outside of purely recreational fun flying). Managing risk is how we do it without killing people. It’s tricky. It’s fluid. It’s complex. It’s subjective. It has multiple levels.

safety

You might even say it’s an art.

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