Standardization of Safety and the Risk of Reliability Drift

The concept of reliability drift management can explain relationships between changes in systemic factors, such as regulatory standards, and their impacts on infrastructure reliability. These relationships are lacking strong... [ view full abstract ]

The concept of reliability drift management can explain relationships between changes in systemic factors, such as regulatory standards, and their impacts on infrastructure reliability. These relationships are lacking strong theoretical and empirical explanation. In this paper, we introduce a research model for studying reliability drift, as well as the role of drivers behind drift and ways of managing it. Reliability drift consists of evolving adaptations in an organization or system that pose risks for its continued operational reliability. Focusing on commercial flight operations on Norway’s system of short runway airports, we document research findings to show how regulatory standardization of flight operations in Europe may be a potential driver of reliability drift by undermining current management strategies in place in a regional airline. Short runway airports comprise a specialized segment of the aviation industry with a comparable reliability record to the rest of the aviation industry but with an alternative reliability strategy significantly different from long-runway operations. This strategy evolved in conjunction with a societal acceptance of smaller safety margins in support of greater service reliability for otherwise isolated regions of coastal Norway. The airline operations are different, among other ways, in technological requirements and demands for training and experience of flight crews that differ from European standards. Our data shows how the airline over time has developed its reliability strategy to fit with national and regional demands for service and route regularity. It also demonstrates a strategy for keeping this reliability in place despite the acceptance of flight conditions and pilot discretion that would not be acceptable in other segments of the aviation industry. This paper shows how the drive towards supranational standardization may supersede local requirements for technical design and operations and at the same time undermine the drift management process in place in the regional airline. We also argue that the continuation of an alternate and drift-protected reliability strategy can depend on maintaining the social equilibrium on which its standard of reliability has been founded.