Pilots and air traffic controllers within the European Union (EU) are applauding the European Parliament transport committee’s September 17 agreement to refine procedures necessary to establish a practical framework to collect and analyze aviation incident data and guarantee private information is not misused. The new system will be called the occurrence reporting regulation.

“A true safety culture is one that recognizes that it can always improve,” said Nico Voorbach, president of the European Cockpit Association (ECA). “Members of the European Parliament understood this and introduced valuable improvements to an already good proposal by the EU Commission.” Alexis Brathwaite, president and CEO of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations, added, “EU Ministers must now take note of the will of Europe’s citizens and aviation experts and start putting more emphasis on safety. This was the clear message of today’s Parliament Transport Committee vote.”

The ECA also praised the European Parliament’s transport committee for a voting record that it said has been consistent and coherent in its approach to improving occurrence reporting in Europe. But the association criticized EU transport ministers for taking the opposite approach on the matter. No date has been announced yet for the next steps.