A Judgmental Call: Measuring the Safety of the Airlines

This article, which appeared in the GAO Journal, No. 1, Spring 1988, discusses how aviation researchers are attempting to determine appropriate, effective standards for measuring and comparing airline safety. While experts generally agree that pilot competence, maintenance quality, financial stability, and management attitude are very important to safe operation, problems exist in attempts to define these characteristics for assessment purposes. The Federal Aviation Administration has acted to improve its databases for collecting and managing airline safety information.