Iata marked the first 20 years of its Operational Safety Audit (Iosa) at the Iata World Safety and Operations Conference which took place in Hanoi, Vietnam, last week.

Iosa was launched in September 2003 with Qatar Airways the first airline to be audited and join the Iosa Registry.

Iosa has been a requirement for Iata membership since 2006. It is also a condition of membership in the three global airline alliances, as well as several regional airline associations.

Regulators use it in numerous countries to complement their safety regulatory oversight programmes, and as the primary means to verify operational safety for many airline codeshare arrangements.

The audit assesses an airline’s conformity with the Iosa standards and recommended practices. These are based on the internationally agreed standards and recommended practices set down and maintained through the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao).

Iosa was developed in co-operation with aviation regulatory bodies, including Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, US Federal Aviation Administration and Transport Canada.

“Over the past two decades, Iosa has made a major contribution to improving safety, while reducing the number of redundant audits. While it is a condition of membership in Iata, more than 100 non-Iata member airlines also see the value of participating and we welcome others. Likewise, while more than 40 governments use or are intending to use Iosa in their safety oversight programmes, many more do not,” said Nick Careen, Iata’s Senior Vice President Operations, Safety and Security.

The safety data confirm that, in aggregate, airlines on the Iosa registry have a lower accident rate than airlines that are not on the Iosa registry.

Since 2005, the all-accident rate for airlines on the Iosa registry is 1.40 per million sectors, compared with 3.49 per million sectors for non-Iosa airlines.

In 2022, Iosa-registered carriers outperformed those not on the registry by a factor of four (0.70 accidents per million sectors vs. 2.82 accidents per million sectors).

Reflecting the strong safety performance of airlines on the Iosa registry, Iata entered Iosa’s third decade with a call for:

• Regulators to recognise the significant contribution to safety that Iosa makes as the global standard for airline operational safety and to incorporate Iosa into their own safety regulatory oversight programmes.
• Airlines not yet on the Iosa registry to join. Currently, some 417 operators are on the Iosa registry, of which 107 are non-Iata members.

Last year, Iata began evolving Iosa to a risk-based model under which audits are tailored to the operator’s profile and focusing on high-risk areas. The new approach also introduces a maturity assessment of the airline's safety-critical systems and programmes.

Furthermore, approximately 15 000 redundant audits have been avoided through audit reports/questionnaire sharing.

“We are now taking it to the next level by tailoring the audit activity to the operator’s profile and focusing on high-risk areas. As Iosa evolves to deliver greater value for the operator and the industry, we hope additional airlines will see the value of this important safety programme and strongly urge more governments to make it a formal part of their safety oversight," said Careen.