Zambian airline takes on world-class air safety standards

LUSAKA, Zambia – Proflight Zambia has completed the third of three workshops under the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) Implementation Training Initiative (ITI) in the airline’s latest step towards the top safety accreditation standard in the global aviation industry.

IOSA is an internationally recognised and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline. It is based on industry proven quality audit principles and designed to ensure that each audit is conducted in a standardised manner in order to achieve consistent results.

“Safety is the number one priority for all of us at Proflight, and Proflight’s successful completion of this IOSA training phase which forms an important preparatory step towards undergoing an IOSA audit and subsequently achieving IOSA certification confirms that. Our team has worked hard and I am pleased to say that all participants passed their final examinations,” said Proflight Zambia Director of Safety Quality and Security, Kenneth Silavwe.

IATA members carry 83 percent of the world’s air traffic and include the world’s leading passenger and cargo airlines. The IOSA audit is a universally accepted benchmark of the standard of safety audit in the world. Attaining IATA accreditation will elevate Proflight’s safety credibility so that the airline can more easily agree code-share agreements with international airlines, and possibly make a case for exemption from the EU ban list on Zambia.

Proflight has in place a functional IOSA a task force and a steering committee to ensure that it attains IOSA accreditation.

The benefits of IOSA certification are many: it reduces insurance premiums, allows for quicker processing of new code share agreements, increased code share opportunities, controlled system to share audit results, IATA quality assurance and brings improvement in management system and operational efficiency.

There has never been any airline in Zambia that has been IOSA accredited under the IOSA safety oversight program, Proflight is in the final phase of being the first.