A Culture of Safety
Aviation is inherently very unforgiving. You can’t just “get it right” part of the time–you have to get it right every time. That’s the SKY Partners difference. Not only do we keep the big safety picture in our constant focus, but we also pay close attention, all of the time, to the little things that can go wrong. It is truly the little things that can cause an accident in the blink of an eye – so we have become fanatics about the minutiae of each flight.
Every charter operator boasts about their ratings from Wyvern and ARGUS. While these safety audits certainly have merit, the truth is they don’t necessarily determine the true safety culture of a charter company. The audits have merely become the accepted norm.
The questions remain: what does the operator do beyond those standards? What habits and behaviors are in place? What strict safety practices are being measured during the rest of the year when you are not undergoing an audit? What systems are in place which always maintains a heightened awareness? What safety improvement ritual is rigidly in place?
These are questions for which we, at SKY Partners, have answers.
At SKY Partners, we are obsessed about safety as we are about service. Along with our IS-BAO, Wyvern Wingman, and ARG/US ratings coupled with Flight Safety crew training, we have programs, systems, habits and rituals in place that go far beyond what other charter companies profess to have. Our devotion to safety is simply second to none. We could drivel on and on with the same safety gobbledygook you find on other charter company websites, but it is not the fancy words that make an operator safe — it’s the culture, which does.
We have the sincere belief that people do not plan to fail, they just fail to plan… which is usually the culprit in all avoidable accidents. Accordingly, we have created and implemented practices that force us to plan for the unexpected. We look at every element of the trip well in advance, be it weather, runway conditions, maintenance issues, potential crew fatigue issues, and more. We have a tool which asks the “What-Ifs.” We plan contingency strategies and back-up tactics accordingly.
We don’t make guesses. We don’t make assumptions. We make fact-based decisions at every point and we secure the required data to make those fact-based decisions. All of our crews go through an annual course in both Critical Decision Making and Cognitive Biases.
Bottom line, mistakes are not an option for us. At SKY Partners, safety and risk management is our way of life.
Air Carrier Certificate #7KPA752N