Editorial: Airlines must heed concern over crashes

The loss of AirAsia Flight 8501 and 162 people as it flew from Surubaya to Singapore capped a horrible 2014 for airlines.

It used to be said that the single most dangerous thing about flying was the drive to the airport. Such was the self-congratulatory tone of an industry proud of a declining trend in crashes. Just at the moment, however, there is much less cause for back-patting. The loss of AirAsia Flight 8501 and 162 people as it flew from Surubaya to Singapore capped a horrible 2014 for airlines. So much so that many of the three billion people who fly each year are beginning to ask just how safe they are up in the air.

There is some justification for this concern. The industry has always boasted that one of its strong points was a determination to learn from every crash. Investigators worked hard to discover what went wrong and recommend responses designed to ensure it would never happen again. Couple that with mankind's increasing technological prowess and the impression has been that flying is becoming as risk-free as it ever could be.

Yet all this was not enough to stop Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanishing in early March. Or for the AirAsia Airbus to drop off the radar, evoking a similar sense of mystery. The plane disappeared in a busy shipping area, yet perplexed rescuers could find no trace of it for several days. There had been no distress signal, and no indication to suggest what might have gone wrong.

The circumstances of the two losses were very different, yet one point of similarity suggested that the airline industry is not, in fact, learning sufficiently from every crash. Technology allowing airlines to track their aircraft in real time is readily available, but the International Civil Aviation Organisation has not made its installation mandatory. Equally, if catastrophic weather caused the AirAsia crash, as is suspected, it will not be the first time this has happened. There should be a greater acknowledgment of the danger.

The shocks to the industry in 2014 included another Malaysia Airlines flight crashing to the ground in eastern Ukraine. Gone with it was the belief that high-flying airliners could safely traverse war zones where relatively rudimentary weapons were being employed.

One uniting element in all these tragedies is the involvement of Malaysia-based airlines. In large part, that is probably down to bad fortune. It should be noted, however, that these airlines operate in a part of the world where the number of people flying is increasing rapidly. Indeed, air travel has expanded faster than the number of qualified pilots, mechanics and air traffic controllers. That throws a particular responsibility on budget carriers like AirAsia. Their cut-price approach cannot compromise safety.

Such carriers have played a pivotal role in the rapid expansion of air travel. It is a feather in their cap that the far greater number of planes in the sky has not prompted an increase in accidents. The year 2013 was actually the safest in aviation in almost 70 years; only 224 people were killed in flight incidents. Last year, when more than 900 died, is likely to be an aberration. But only if airlines place an emphasis on safety appropriate to the degree of tragedy associated with each and every crash.