Air New Zealand, easyJet, Delta Air Lines, Virgin and QinetiQ have initiated a Forum for the airline industry, to openly discuss FRMS issues and collaboratively build a body of knowledge for the establishment of Best Practise for the unencumbered use of members. The FRMS Forum was launched on 8th May 2009 and is managed by volunteer, elected members and operated for the benefit of the membership.
The Forum provides a vehicle for industry specialists to meet to share knowledge and experiences of creating, developing and managing an FRMS. The output will be a growing, shared body of knowledge that is Best Practise for the industry. This will take the form of a number of downloadable documents and templates on a web site that member can freely use and modify for their own use provided that they return to present any significant developments to the Forum in order to improve Best Practice.
It is proposed that this independent organisation will meet once per year to learn from the experience of a number of speakers drawn from stakeholder sub-groups such as the airline industry, the science community, Regulators and Employee groups. Subgroups may meet more often.
Anything that is commercially confidential to any company is expected to be excluded from any presentation.
Terms of reference:
The scope of Forum focuses on delivering the following benefits to members:
- Provide both formal and informal opportunities for airlines to receive and exchange information, ideas and experiences on managing human fatigue;
- Facilitate and host a downloadable best practice library of FRMS inclusive of documentation covering roster/shiftwork schedules and latest regulatory guidance/compliance requirements;
- Facilitate the provision of a general structure of an FRMS manual integrated into a company SMS and fatigue risk assessment tools and processes;
- Facilitate a formal question and answer session for forum members (guided by the Forum committee) to exchange points of view and information around management of fatigue as a risk;
- Facilitate the representation of appropriate FRMS service providers to the forum and guide evaluation reviews by forum members.
Participation in the Forum will be regulated through a code of conduct.
An inaugural Meeting on 8th May 2009 appointed officers to run the Forum for the coming year. Their responsibility will be to administer and guide the technical content of the programme and organise the affairs of the Forum. Accordingly, the Management Committee is comprised of Simon Stewart from easyJet, Dr David Powell from Air New Zealand, Jim Mangie from Delta Air Lines, Rob Holliday from Virgin Atlantic and Dr Barbara Stone of QinetiQ. All are knowledgeable practitioners and recognised by their peer group for the work they have done in this domain.
Kathryn Jones, Flight Standards Officer of CAA, has kindly agreed to support the Committee in the capacity of an advisor and observer.
Douglas Mellor of the Human Factors Group at QinetiQ has been appointed to take care of the associated business administration of the Forum.
The Managment Committee were delighted when Dr Curt Graeber accepted their invitation as non-executive Chair.
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