To: Airport Managers/Directors/CEOs, Accountable Executives, Airport Safety Managers, and Airport Authority Leadership

Subj: POLICY REGARDING THE FUTRON AIRPORT SAFETY CULTURE ASSESSMENT (ASCA) PROCESS

Background. The FAA Airport Safety Management System (SMS) Advisory Circular (AC No. 150/5200-37A), paragraph 2.3.1 states that airports “. . . may need to consider their current safety culture and account for further cultural development in their SMS implementation plan.” It further states in paragraph 2.3.2 that in the development of the SMS Implementation Plan, one of the suggested steps is to "Inventory existing safety processes, . . . and understand the current safety culture of the organization. This is the current state or starting point." Futron's ASCA provides this important view of the current state of the safety climate at an airport and provides a starting point for crafting safety culture shaping strategies that can support and enhance airport SMS processes.

The Futron ASCA process was designed to provide airport leadership with a means by which to anonymously survey those who work at the airport with regard to safety issues and receive real-time feedback on their attitudes and perceptions. A key goal of this survey method is to identify and correct latent organizational conditions that may lead to increased safety incident and accident potential. Following survey administration, airport leaders receive feedback concerning key issues regarding the current climate, safety culture, resource availability, workload, estimated success of certain safety intervention programs, and other factors relating to safely managing operations at the airport, whether airside or landside. The ASCA process helps airport leadership identify safety concerns (hazards) and highlight areas where they might best focus their efforts (hazard assessment). Airport leaders and Safety Managers are then able to use this information to develop strategies (risk decisions) and then implement those strategies (risk mitigations) to better their organization's performance.

Policy. The following policy has been established regarding the ASCA system. The elements of the policy form the cornerstone for successful use of the tool, and protect the features that make the process valuable:

Survey Response Anonymity - An individual must be free to respond without fear of reprisal, whether the fear is real or perceived. Without this, the data gathered may be inaccurate and of minimal use to airport leadership.

Organizational Survey Results are Confidential - The results of the surveys are not provided to anyone above the Accountable Executive to avoid the perception that the results are used as a safety report card. Without the Accountable Executive’s permission, the only survey results shared with anyone besides the airport Accountable Executive are aggregated at a higher level.

For those airports without an SMS in place, the results are shared only with the airport manager/director.

Restricted Access Codes Provided to the Accountable Executive - Access to airport survey results are left to the discretion of the airport Accountable Executive for distribution as they see fit.

Ability of Those Senior to the Airport Accountable Executive to Access Aggregate Data - Airport owners or headquarters personnel have the ability to review aggregate survey data at a macro-level in order to address community-wide issues.

It is imperative these attributes are maintained in order to gather honest data. Any breach of faith might jeopardize the integrity and future value of this process.