Safety Communication
Information to staff
Priority is given to safety in all publications of LVNL, internal or external as the most important parameter of LVNL services. The promotion of safety is one of the principle tasks of all managent personnel and is supposed to take place during all relevant activities.
Safety information is crucial for the enhancement of the safety performance for all staff. Safety Information is tailored to meet the recipient’s needs and thus varies greatly in form and frequency. A lot of safety information is spread through columns, letters, briefings, group sessions and of course in our LVNL Safety Magazine, called ‘[email protected]’, resembling also the e-mail address where LVNL can always be reached for any safety matter, externally and internally. Articles cover safety events that happened within LVNL and discussion thereof but also other safety articles with LVNL relevance. Review by editors of the safety magazine is done annually with feedback from readers, supervisor groups etc. Even so, external safety publications from outside organizations (e.g. EUROCONTROL) may be distributed widely within LVNL operations.
All operational staff are informed when procedures have changed, through formal messaging to operational staff they need to formally check before starting their shift. Equally, all changes are documented in bulletin system, handbook, operational manual, special notifications, Quick Reference Handbooks.
Recording and dissemination of lessons learned.
A safety report that is submitted is promptly answered with an acknowledgement of reception and any actions that will be taken based on the report. The Operational Risk Management unit investigates all submitted safety reports.
Safety-critical information is shared with all appropriate staff through direct messages that they are obliged to check before starting their shift, as part of change management.
Outside of the regular occurrence reporting system, staff are given the appropriate means to react on communications and alert the organization of any perceived problems. There is regular contact with operational staff, specifically the Operational Expert assigned to safety tasks of Operations to evaluate whether the communications to staff are effective and if they need to be changed or updated.
The team of supervisors come together regularly and discuss safety and safety management system issues with each other. These discussions result in renewed vigilance on certain safety issues.
During recurrency trainings safety is specially discussed amongst the complete controller community.
Sharing with industry stakeholders
Industry stakeholders are key to LVNL’s safety performance and safety information is freely shared with any relevant organisation outside LVNL, including international bodies as ICAO, CANSO, EASA, EUROCONTROL, ACI and others, not only when this is required by legislation but also based on good safety business principles. LVNL encourages the proactive sharing of safety-related information with other parties (including industry stakeholders) and actively shares safety data with international bodies to drive safety improvement.
Informing the general public
As part of the analysis of how the LVNL organisation communicated to the external world over the past decades and as part of a broad-spectrum Safety Culture and Just Culture approach, LVNL decided in 2014 to publish all LVNL’s serious and major (severity type “A” and type “B“) safety incidents on the public website.
This register on the public website is maintained and updated and is e.g. used by the prosecution’s office to check and verify that reported incidents are actually followed up, increasing the trust in the effectiveness of our safety management system, ultimately resulting in a stand-off attitude by the prosecutor in case of incidents that have not resulted into damage to goods or persons.
After almost ten years in operations the principle of publishing serious and major safety events on our website is a well accepted practice with our controller community, with positive feedback from them. Also their awareness of serious / major incidents and the public consequences has been raised, assisting in an improved safety culture. Incidents that LVNL publishes tend to receive no or only limited media attention.
Training and Education
Controller training
Besides being a certified Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP), LVNL trains its own air traffic controllers and has a certificate for this according to EU Regulation. Safety is an integral part of training of (student) air traffic controllers. (Student) air traffic controllers are during their training continuously assessed and safety is one of the main topics. During Unit Training abnormal and emergency procedures are trained. For licensed staff safety is one of the main drivers during refresher training and conversion training (continuation training).
For air traffic controllers a 3 year refresher training programme is defined containing topics which need to be addressed in line with regulation and in line with the needs of operations.
For each operational function a competency model exists which forms the basis for the unit training curriculum. Also for continuation training the competency models are applied as basis for the training needs analysis. The competency model is included in the Unit Endorsement Course which on its turn is approved by the competent authority. The competencies, including their description are also depicted in the student monitoring system.
Depending on the trainees needs, LVNL is able to offer different kinds of additional training to fill in detected gaps. Within Unit Training additional training on the simulator (to train specific competences) can be offered. A trainee can receive personal coaching to train specific competences that are more related to 'non technical skills’. Also a variety of e-learning modules can be offered to the trainee to support the development of certain skills. A lot more 'customized' training is possible, depending on the specific need of a trainee (in relationship to the specific stage of Unit Training the trainee is in).
Other Staff training
Line Managers of all departments are accountable for providing the necessary training to their employees based on the need and their roles. This is used to drive the overall training plan for the organization.
All staff are aware of the importance of safety and the organization's approach to safety, through the safety policy of the LVNL, through awareness campaigns of the top priorities of the organization, through specific messages of the board to all personnel and through specific targeted instructions or courses being followed by relevant personnel.
