Mark Searle, IATA’s Director of Safety, told the opening of the IATA World Safety and Operations Conference 2026 in Istanbul on 6 October 2026 that the next advance in aviation safety will come from people, technology and standards working together better as one resilient system. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) set out priorities under each of the three headings.
Searle said aviation is safer than it was a decade ago, with fatal accident rates improving from one accident per 3.5 million flights to one per 5.6 million flights. He added that 2025 still saw the loss of 394 lives in aviation accidents.
On people, IATA identified three priorities as a new generation of aviation professionals brought up in the digital age rises in the workforce. They are structured knowledge transfer, through mentoring, training and succession planning; combining the operational knowledge of experienced professionals with the digital skills and artificial intelligence (AI) fluency of the new generation; and protecting a safety culture in which people can report hazards, errors and near misses without fear.
On technology, IATA said new technologies, including AI, should be assessed against three tests: whether they help safety professionals understand what is happening around them, whether they support better decision-making, and whether the operation can remain safe if the technology is unavailable or compromised. Searle pointed to the rise in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference as a reminder that technology must be supported by redundancy, procedures, training and human judgment.
On standards, IATA said the performance of airlines on the IOSA registry demonstrates the value of common global standards backed by effective oversight, and that many of aviation’s biggest safety challenges today stem from inconsistent implementation and oversight rather than a lack of global standards. “The next step change in safety will not come from writing more standards. It will come from making sure the standards we already have are understood, implemented and overseen consistently, everywhere,” Searle said. IATA identified three actions: improving implementation and oversight by focusing limited resources on the areas of greatest risk; strengthening State compliance with international obligations, particularly on conflict zone risk information and accident reporting; and keeping standards relevant by simplifying, modernising and updating requirements to reflect changes in technology, operations and the regulatory environment.
Searle said the three must reinforce one another, whether the subject is runway safety, GNSS interference, conflict zones or accident investigations, and that when one is weak the resilience of the entire system is reduced.
