Evaluating the Reporting and Safety Culture of an Airline According to Patankar and Sabin’s Safety Culture Pyramid

Abstract

Aviation is an international, dynamic, and operationally complex industry that strives to meet safety standards. In addition, the civil aviation sector requires technical expertise in the work performed (Görlich & Stadelmann, 2020). To ensure the continuity of safety, employees need to report safety-related violations or illegal practices to the authorized units to ensure safety. Reporting illegal events and unsafe actions to a higher authority is referred to as whistleblowing (Miceli et al., 2008). In this context, whistleblowing, which contributes to the reporting culture, is an important issue in the civil aviation sector in terms of safety. Safety culture, which is developed to ensure safety, consists of attitudes, values, beliefs, and practices related to safety (Glendon & Stanton, 2000) and is important for preventing occupational accidents. Safety culture refers to the development of an organizational culture that will encourage employees to recognize the risks and potential hazards that may arise from their own or their company's activities, to report them to the relevant places, and to behave in a way that will increase safety. In this context, it is possible to say that safety culture offers the opportunity to learn from mistakes and aims for continuous improvement (Reason, 1997). Employees contribute to the safety culture through reporting but should be able to report adverse safety incidents without fear of being penalized. Such an effective mechanism allows for the anticipation of potential hazards (Dekker, 2014), the improvement of operations by learning from mistakes (International Civil Aviation Orogranization [ICAO], 2013) and the establishment of open communication to ensure safety within the organization.