Malta Air Traffic Services Co. Ltd, the certified and designated air navigation services provider for the whole of the Malta airspace, last week hosted two important EUROCONTROL safety meetings, namely that of the SHPSG and SISG. The planning and organisation of these two meetings were performed by the Safety, Quality and Security section (SQS) of MATS.
Thirty-five human factors and safety experts hailing from 14 European countries and EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, met at a leading hotel to discuss a variety of human performance topics. These experts are part of the EUROCONTROL Safety Human Performance Sub-Group (SHPSG) which is a specialist advisory body, established to support and drive safety human performance improvement in the provision of air navigation services. Air traffic management(ATM) is a complex system where the human element is a key component. The interaction of the persons with the other parts of the system and the environment is essential to the safety of flight. It is extremely important to understand how humans maintain safe flight despite the economic, technological and financial constraints and shortcomings inherent in the system. MATS has been a member of the SHPSG since its inception back in 2010.
The Safety Improvement Sub-Group (SISG) is another EUROCONTROL specialist advisory body established to support safety improvement in the provision of air navigation services. SISG is tasked to identify current safety operational issues at European level by sharing and analysing safety information. It then initiates, proposes and facilitates short-term safety improvement initiatives to address operational safety issues. The Malta meeting brought around 50 experts from over 20 states, including those from MATS, to review the top five European ATM risks which had been identified by EUROCONTROL following a careful analysis of data gathered from several incidents and also to discuss other matters related to runway safety. MATS has been constantly present in SISG since 2004.
Despite its small size the MATS SQS section is actively involved in many safety initiatives both at regional and European levels. In fact, the MATS safety manager is the coordinator for the safety performance of the BLUEMED Functional Airspace Block (consisting of Malta, Italy, Greece and Cyprus). The CEO of MATS is currently the chairman of the BLUEMED Air Navigation Service Providers Committee.