Investigating the impacts of COVID-19 on aviation safety based on occurrences captured through flight data monitoring

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to growing concerns about pilots’ proficiency due to the significant decrease in flight operations. The objective of this research is to provide a proactive approach to mitigate potential risks in flight operations associated with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic using flight data monitoring (FDM). The results demonstrated significant associations between the pandemic impacts and FDM exceedance categories, flight phases and fleets. Manual flying skill decay, lack of practice effects on use of standard operating procedures and knowledge of flight deck automation should be considered by airlines when preparing for the return to normal operations. An FDM Programme allows prediction of the probability and severity of occurrences for developing an effective SMS within an airline. To mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, tailored training sessions must be implemented, and airlines should strive to avoid additional optional procedures where practicable.

Practitioner summary: The COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns regarding pilot proficiency due to lack of practice effects. Results from the Flight Data Monitoring Programme show significant associations between the pandemic impacts and occurrence categories, fleets, and flight phases. FDM can be applied to mitigate the probability and severity of occurrences for airlines developing effective safety management systems.

HIGHLIGHTS

• There is a significant association between the COVID-19 pandemic stages and FDM events in different flight phases, FDM categories, and aircraft types

• The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant increase in FDM exceedances, especially for precursors on runway excursion and go-arounds

• Airlines should carefully plan training sessions for pilots as the disruptions due to the pandemic led to a lack of practice effect in flight operations

• Reviewing FDM data may have contributions to establish proactive SMS and mitigate COVID-19 impacts to aviation safety

Keywords:

• Aviation safety
• COVID-19
• flight data monitoring
• operational proficiency
• safety resilience

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express special thanks to Captain Ben Whitworth and Simon Oakes for their contribution to this research. Their support and the enthusiasm of their respective teams was invaluable in facilitating the authors’ research efforts.

Disclosure statement

The authors declared that they have no commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the work submitted to Ergonomics.

Data availability statement

Due to the privacy restrictions as well as a legally binding confidentiality agreement with the data provider, it is not possible for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

The first author of this research was supported by the Higher Education Innovation Fund [HEIF 2020–2021]. The third author of this research was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under contract [number MOST 110-2511-H-003-006-MY2].