Airport_Business_February-March_2020 - 28

IS-BAH
Screenshots of
Web Manuals in
operation.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WEB
MANUALS

ensuring a "just culture."
"The challenge to make the leap from
Stage 2 to Stage 3 was to retool and expand
our safety performance indicators, or SPIs,
used to determine overall functionality
of safety performance. We had to take
a 'deep dive' into years of data to match
where our safety targets, alert levels and
goals should be for an operation that has
been measuring safety performance for
five years," Thurmond says.
"One of the main tenants of IS-BAH is
a shared accountability. An organization
that seeks to maintain a just culture
and a positive work environment must
hold itself accountable for any negative
outcomes created by errors or oversight
in the training it provides or in the
systems and procedures it puts in place,"
she continues. "Equally, its employees
within that organization must be held
accountable for following procedure
and participating in the SMS. However,
for this sharing of accountability to
succeed, both parties must be careful in
the assignment of blame for when things
don't go as planned or an accident or
incident occurs. Everyone within the
organization must be allowed to speak
freely and honestly about something that
went wrong in order to make corrections.
At American Aero, we encourage our
staff to report safety issues and mistakes
that are committed by their superiors.
This fosters the idea that anyone is
capable of making a mistake, and anyone
can bring it up for discussion for learning
purposes, without fear of retribution."
For ExecutJet, Poggi explains their
multiple FBO locations and associated
IS-BAH accreditations were an easy
adoption when coupled with ExecuJet's
prior, self-implemented safety culture.
"ExecuJet already has a high standard
of operating procedures in place with
a company-wide safety management
system and a 'no blame' incident
reporting culture - IS-BAH has brought
this all together in a recognizable form

for all staff to take on board. We have
our own IS-BAH accredited auditor
who conducts internal inspections to
enable ExecuJet to maintain our high
standards and undertake third party
audits for other FBOs. We view this as
helping the industry as a whole to be
safer," Poggi says.
Poggi adds that they're making plans
for IS-BAH Stage 3 accreditation, but
in the immediate are shoring up their
Stage 2 accreditations and getting their
new FBOs IS-BAH Stage 1 accredited.
"Stage 2 is a process of continuous
improvement and in order to maintain
this level of certification, continuous
improvement must be demonstrated.
Stage 3 is in planning phase and we will
continue to access the benefits provided,
but for the immediate future we will
focus on continuous improvement and
moving our new FBOs to Stage 1 and 2
accreditations," explains Poggi.

Getting Started with
IS-BAH
While the program has grown greater
than expected, there are still locations
without IS-BAH accreditation. As
IS-BAH and its benefits have become
more prolific, more and more operators
are beginning to require IS-BAH
accreditation to do business with an FBO,
Yeomans says. That push along with the
great word of mouth from participating
FBOs is getting more FBOs involved
with the program, but as Yeomans notes,
where and how to begin can be tough.
For operations looking to begin the
IS-BAH process, Yeomans says that the
best starting place is with an IS-BAH
Workshop. The workshops go over the
background and general information
of IBAC and IS-BAH, implementing
an SMS, as well as implementing and
improving organization, training,
standard operating procedures (SOPs),
company operations manual, emergency
response planning, environmental

28 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020

management, occupational health and
safety, transportation of dangerous goods,
security and the IS-BAH auditing process.
For locations looking to get started or
currently seeking IS-BAH accreditation,
an important step is keeping current with
IS-BAH regulations and its supporting
manuals. Web Manuals, a digital, cloudbased document management solution,
offers 20 IS-BAH related documents
as part of its digital library, with one
IS-BAH client utilizing the service
worldwide.
"One of the keyways that Web
Manuals can help an FBO become
IS-BAH accredited is through its
capacity as a safety and security enabler.
For an FBO to be recognized with
IS-BAH status, they must exhibit the
highest practices and standards in safety
management. Using Web Manuals'
document digitalization tool, users
can keep important manuals up-todate, ensuring they adhere to the very
latest regulatory changes. Above all,
digital manuals save customers valuable
resources and ensure that operations
are safe, efficient and compliant," says
Martin Lidgard, founder and CEO of
Web Manuals.
Above all else, Yeomans stresses
an FBO should take IS-BAH piece by
piece and the importance is on safety first,
not on wrangling the entire IS-BAH
program at once.
"It's tough thinking outside the box
and working though the processes of their
everyday operations, document what they
do and where. The whole system is built
on starting off small and continuously
improving bit by bit," says Yeomans.
"FBO customers may take ground
handling safety for granted, but the
truth is it can never be assumed,"
Thurmond adds. "Safety is a byproduct
of competencies. Achieving IS-BAH
certification is about developing and
demonstrating those competencies,
yielding safer operations." 
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