By Gillian Aeria and Neryssa Azlan, ABC News
Air India "failed to submit timely compliance responses" to deficiencies raised by India's aviation regulator for some of its Airbus planes. Photo: AFP/URBANANDSPORT
The Air India crash earlier this month in Ahmedabad that killed all but one passenger was the worst aviation disaster in a decade.
Less than a minute after take-off, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London plummeted into the dormitory of a medical college, resulting in the deaths of 270 people.
A full investigation is still underway into the cause of the crash.
But in the days afterwards, it was revealed India's civil aviation regulator had issued Air India with warnings that safety checks on some of its other aircraft were overdue.
The warnings were in relation to three of Air India's Airbus planes found to have been operating despite mandatory inspections being overdue on the "critical emergency equipment" of escape slides. They were not related in any way to the Boeing aircraft that crashed.
It left some asking how travellers are supposed to determine which airlines are safer than others.
And why is some safety information about airlines not made public?
While consumers can search websites to read up an airline's safety record, not all safety information is publicly available. Photo: Patrick
What information can I find online?
AirlineRatings.com, an Australian company, calls itself "the world's only safety and product rating website".
It gives airlines around the world a score out of seven stars for safety, based on several measures.
For example, it explains: "Has the airline experienced a fatal crash in the last 10 years? Three stars are deleted from the rating if the airline has had any fatalities to passengers or crew in the prior 10 years."
But, it says, "If deaths occurred through acts of terrorism, hijackings, OR pilot suicide, they have not been included. Nor if the death is not attributable to the airline (faulty manufactured part)."
RMIT University's aviation lead, associate professor Chrystal Zhang, said resources like AirlineRatings could be useful.
Dr Zhang said consumers could also search for media coverage or even look at an airline's annual reports to find out how old its aircraft were and get information on its corporate culture and safety records.
But she said that ultimately, "from the public's perspective, it is very hard".
AirlineRatings and resources like it are limited to publicly available information.
In contrast to AirlineRatings, Skytrax - a UK-based consultancy that issues widely recognised quality ratings for airlines - does not publish a comparative rating of airline safety standards or records.
"There is no single accurate, global reference of safety standards and/or safety incidents which provides information that can, in our opinion, be truly trusted by passengers, or which supplies total accuracy to customers in choosing an airline," it says.
Aviation law specialist John Ribbands said some websites were based on customers' subjective experiences.
"It's not as if someone independently goes around and does an audit, for example, on the maintenance, compliance, and things like that," he said.
Why aren't safety records public?
Airline safety standards fall roughly into two tiers.
These are international standards that member-states sign up to, and national laws developed by each country's aviation regulator, Dr Zhang explained.
Most countries are members of the Chicago Convention, an agreement established by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
The convention sets out the core principles for international civil aviation and establishes the rules of airspace, aircraft registration, and safety.
But Dr Zhang said how well those standards were implemented by ICAO signatories depended on individual countries' domestic civil aviation laws.
In Australia, airlines are regulated by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).
CASA spokesperson Peter Gibson said airlines operating in Australia needed to continuously meet safety regulations and standards.
Small charter operators and airlines are subject to the same requirements under CASA. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Not every detail of an airline's maintenance could be made public, Mr Gibson said, "because it would just make the whole system unworkable".
"We would find it very difficult to get the airlines to give us the full and complete access we now have, if they knew that every single thing they did, every single bit of information they provided, would be made public," he said.
Mr Ribbands explained that Australian regulations required airlines to implement a system of maintenance whereby anything going wrong could be traced back to a single part of the plane.
"It's so complex that when an engineer goes and puts a spanner on the aircraft, they've got a sign off on their name, the size of the spanner they used, the size, and part number of the bits and pieces that they put onto the aircraft," he said.
John Ribbands says aircraft maintenance is well-tracked so accountability can be traced. Photo: ABC Rural: Max Rowley
Back in 2011, CASA took the unprecedented step of grounding all flights by Tiger Airways.
The authority said at the time it did not have "confidence in the ability of Tiger to continue to manage the safety of their operations".
Tiger later ceased Australian operations during the COVID pandemic.
Should maintenance information be public?
There are arguments both ways.
Dr Zhang said individuals should have the right to the information they need to make informed decisions, but that certain details about safety and maintenance could be commercially sensitive.
"People argue that the very strict, rigid regulations are affecting airline innovation already, so that balance is very hard to strike," she said.
"Perhaps there could be more detailed [safety] information [in the annual reports] - it's a good debate and conversation that should be had," she added.
While air safety records can indicate what happened previously, they cannot predict what happens next, and thus, Dr Zhang said that might not be enough to outweigh the disadvantages of making such records public.
Photo: Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via AFP
Even airlines that are 100 per cent airworthy with exemplary safety records and up-to-date maintenance can still crash due to mechanical failures and weather conditions.
Mr Ribbands agreed that making such records publicly available might not be necessary.
"It's in the best interest from a marketing and business perspective for the airlines to maintain a safe record," he said.
"So, large airlines with large organisations become almost self-regulating."
Is the lack of safety information a concern?
Consumers in Australia should be reassured that Australia's aviation regulators have a "tight system" when regulating Australia's airspace, Mr Ribbands said.
"With CASA, it doesn't matter whether you're a small charter operator where you're flying, for example, from Melbourne to Flinders Island, or whether you're on Qantas flying to London, you're subject to the same requirements," he said.
Australia is a member of the ICAO, which audits signatory nations regularly.
"There's quite a few levels internationally making sure that the system hangs together and delivers the right outcomes," said Mr Gibson.
"There's no, sort of, discount that the budget carriers get in terms of safety.
"They still have to deliver the same safety performance, regardless of whether the price for the tickets is lower."
- ABC
