GCC air traffic to see 12% growth this year

The worldwide recession is temporary and the number of airline services will double over the next 20 years, the UAE minister of economy told a conference discussing air relief operation safety.

Addressing the World Food Programme Line Operation Safety Audit and Threat Error Management Conference, Sultan Saeed Al Mansouri, who is also the Chairman of the General Civil Aviation Authority, said the recession has affected the aviation industry but now it is back on the recovery path.

Al Mansouri said: "While the worldwide decline in passenger flights and numbers has been evident over the past two years, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) has stated that it is encouraged by the signs of recovery in third quarter traffic figures for 2009.

"However, the global losses exceeded $11 billion (Dh40.39bn) in 2009 and Iata recently estimated losses of $5.6bn for 2010."

Referring to GCC's aviation sector, Al Mansouri said traffic figures in the Gulf showed a steady 10 per cent rise throughout 2009, when compared to 2008. "Traffic growth for 2010 is predicted to be even higher at 12 per cent annually," he said.

However, Al Mansouri added that the recession is temporary and, in the long term, Boeing predicts that the number of airlines in service, worldwide, will double over the next 20 years.

About aviation accidents druing relief operations, he said: "In simple terms, if the large aeroplane fatal accident rate remains the same, we will see a doubling of the number of accidents in the next 20 years. Clearly this is unacceptable. Now, as we all know, there have been tremendous advances in aviation safety since the 1950s and 60s when the fatal accident rate was one in every 200,000 flights. Today it is 10 times better than that with a fatal accident occurring less than one in every two million flights."

However, Al Mansouri added that the task in reducing the rate further is complex and very problematic, particularly as the rate has levelled off in recent years.

He said technical improvements, which have significantly enhanced safety over the past 20 years, have been very impressive, with innovations such as flight data monitoring, better ground proximity warning systems and traffic collision avoidance systems, to name but a few.

"But, on the human side, there have not been such levels of innovation. Crew resource management, improvements in training and standardisation and, more recently, the introduction of safety management systems are some examples. We have relied too much on finding technical solutions, at the expense of solving more difficult issues associated with human performance."