Application, Utility and Acceptability of Data Analytics in Safety Risk Management of Airline Operations

One area the aviation industry is grappling with is the quantification of the probability of occurrence of safety incidents. Currently, aviation professionals involved in safety risk management mostly rely on collective experience to determine probability of incident occurrences and apply it to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) matrix or equivalent to evaluate the risk. A number of limitations linked to the use of risk matrices will be explored in this paper. It is the aim of this paper to explore statistical methods that can be used to determine the probability of safety occurrences and come up with an algorithm that can be used by airlines using available safety data. The novelty of this research is that it combines the exploration of use of statistical techniques to quantitatively assess risk using Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) and other data, with acceptability of Safety Risk Management (SRM) data analytics by operational personnel. The paper also explores the contributory factors leading to the reluctance of operational personnel to use data analytics to inform their risk assessments despite the increasing availability of operational data and advancement in technology.