Citation

Oster C. J. Transp. Res. Forum 1991; 31(2): 286-297.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, Transportation Research Forum)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The United States broke from a long-standing airline regulatory tradition in 1978 with passage of the Airline Deregulation Act that removed, over a period of several years, almost all economic regulation. Although all safety regulation was left intact in the U.S., economic deregulation was accompanied from the beginning by concerns about potential safety degradation. Recently, less restrictive economic regulation has extended beyond the U.S. to several other countries including, in 1988, Canada. As in the U.S., relaxing economic regulation has heightened concerns about safety. This paper examines variation in safety rates among segments of the Canadian aviation industry and compares the Canadian experience with similar segments of the U.S. industry. The comparison provides insight into air safety in both countries, points to areas for potential safety improvement, and provides a baseline for a future assessment of changes in Canadian air safety. Two trends emerge from the analysis. The first is that in both the Canadian and U.S. industries, as one moves from general aviation to charter service to commuter service to scheduled jet service, the proportion of accidents caused by pilot error drops consistently. A second trend is that a consistently higher proportion of accidents in the Canadian industry are initiated by pilot error. The notable and significant exception is in the other commercial/general aviation sector where pilot error plays the same dominant role in Canada as in the U.S.