AAAE Follow-Up

“Part 139 is a fantastic foundation and provides many of the building blocks that are going to make the move to SMS much easier in the United States, and I do believe under 139 compliance is essential,” remarks FAA’s Lang.

“Prescriptive regulations work when there are a lot of common cause events; SMS is different. It is a future approach, and really looks at addressing unique causes and organizational aspects.”

Says Tim O’Krongley, assistant aviation director at San Antonio International Airport, “We have decided to implement SMS campus-wide ... there is a lot of talk about scalability. What was right for San Antonio was right for San Antonio.

“Every airport needs to look at how they want to implement SMS, and where they want to implement SMS.”

O’Krongley says the airport has a five-year program, and that SMS is not a quick set-up. “We fully expect our program to take 5-7 years,” he adds.

“One of the biggest things that we found in implementing SMS is just getting people to understand what it is you’re doing. We learned that from our tenants; we get a lot of feedback from them.”