How the Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) has been able to maintain safety in the airline travels

Introduction 

Airline safety remains to be an issue of concern in the whole world and the United States Airlines have managed to win the trust of customers as the safest in the whole world. One of the reasons as to why the United States airlines have successfully been termed as the safest is due to the fact that they are proactively engaging in safety programs to improve or maintain their safety record. One of the most notable safety programs that are being proactively used by airlines to achieve safety is the Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) which is a remarkable flight data monitoring safety method that is aimed at increasing the efficiency of flight trips. This paper seeks to establish how the Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) has been able to maintain safety in the airline travels ( Stolzer and Halford, 2016). 

Solution 

Stolzer and Halford (2016) state that th e success of airline safety is based solemnly on the monitoring programs to address any shortcomings in aircraft operations. Airline safety also creates a channel through which the safety of the people is still withheld even in the midst of natural calamities which little or nothing could be done to prevent them. There are approximately 22 accidents per 100,000 flight hours in all the United States airline which is very recommendable statistics as compared to all other airlines across the world. FOQA makes use of monitoring parameters to observe the flight proceedings in order to establish any irregularities during the flight operations to enhance safety. Some of the monitoring parameters that this system uses include; identifying critical events during travel, recovery and analysis of flight data in order to establish is everything is working as expected, identifying trends and abnormalities that may exist during the flight operation time as well as consistent monitoring of actions. Before the implementation of data monitoring systems to improve on performance in the air, line operation, the system had been successfully tested in other fields such as medicine ant the automotive industry and it seemed to work perfectly. One of the things that have rendered the FOQA an efficient system of monitoring is the fact that it captures its data from both digital and analogue sensors. Once the data is collected the monitoring specialists make use of SEGEM software to analyze the data collected by the sensors. 

Justification 

Air transport safety plays a critical role in supporting international social and economic primacies. The six sigma process has worked for the Motorola manufacturing industry to help them optimize processes in the company which in turn go a long way in saving them from losses. Having worked perfectly for the Motorola industry, the united stated airlines opted to use the same procedure to mitigate their shortcoming ( Klinect, Helmreich and Wilhelm, 2015). The use of FOQA in airline safety is aimed at achieving a practical measure to improve safety in airline transportation. All the parameter data which is recorded during the monitoring process, by all means, adhere to all the flight protocols to avoid variance of data collected. The Six Sigma terms well designed and make use of data-driven methodology to eradicating flaws. Prior to the 1980’s when they adopted the six sigma practice, they were operating on a red line of risk and higher manufacturing costs and a significant shit was realized after the implementation of the six sigma. The defining stage of the six sigma process enables the user to establish critically the background and historical information for the overall operation. For the case of the airline, the people who would be involved most in this process could include individuals like the managers, data analysts, pilots, maintenance personnel. The second stage is absolutely fundamental because it helps the individual to measure to what extent the operations can be improved using the data that has already been collected from the first initial stage ( Bratu and Barnhart, 2016). This stage also involves establishing the extent of shortcomings that are being experienced. The analysis stage of the process happens to be the most critical because it is at this stage that the root cause of the shortcomings is established. For instance, some of the root causes that can be established include bad weather and poor communication for instance. The last two stages which entail improving and controlling the root causes basically give the solutions to the shortcomings putting all the factors in place. Ideally, some of the shortcomings need improvements while others just need control, hence, it is up to the analysts to establish if the issue at hand can be well improved or controlled. 

Conclusion 

Among all the initiatives that have ever been put in place, Flight Operations Quality Assurance remains to be the most effective for airlines. One of the reasons why it has been the most effective is because unlike all another initiative the Flight Operations Quality Assurance initiative makes use of quantifiable parameters which are analyzed to come up with the aspects affecting airline travel operation. Most of the initiative that was being used before were based on estimates and speculations by experts and airline personnel’s which in one way or another may not have been very practical. It is very possible or airlines to benefit more by engaging more in quality ideologies in designing, applying, and running safety programs, like the FOQA. Making use of the Six Sigma airlines can be able to measure quality as well as boost the efficiency of FOQA, particularly for process development ingenuities for the well-being of the airlines. 

References 

Bratu, S., & Barnhart, C. (2016). Flight operations recovery: New approaches considering passenger recovery.  Journal of Scheduling ,  9 (3), 279-298. 

Klinect, J. R., Helmreich, R. L., & Wilhelm, J. A. (1999). Threat and error management- Data from Line Operations Safety Audits. In  International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, 10 th, Columbus, OH  (pp. 683-688). 

Stolzer, A. J., Wu, H., & Halford, C. (2016). Six Sigma applied to flight operations quality assurance: An exemplar case study.  International Journal of Applied Aviation Studies ,  6 (1), 11.