Bryan Burns has steered the Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) through its near infancy to a multi-faceted safety organization that offers a variety of safety programs to charter operators. He joined ACSF in 2010, two years after it was formally established, as executive director and later became president.
Burns brought 30 years of fixed-base operation experience to his role at ACSF, serving as general manager for Signature Flight Support at the Washington Dulles and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airports and before that v-p of Jackson Hole Aviation and president of Vail Valley Jet Center in Eagle, Colorado. He was the recipient of the NBAA Dr. Tony Kern Aviation Professionalism Award in 2021 as well as the Flight Safety Foundation Business Aviation Meritorious Service Award in 2022. In a recent interview, he discussed the evolution of ACSF with AIN.
Talk a little about the history of the Air Charter Safety Foundation.
The foundation was formed as a spinoff of NATA [the National Air Transportation Association] as a sister organization because of the large number of high-profile fatal accidents that were happening in the industry back in 2006 and 2007.
The FAA was not happy with charter operator safety and said, “You guys have got to reach out to your charter members to fix this. This is just not acceptable.” That’s what triggered the Industry Audit Standard. [The late ACSF v-p operations] Russ [Lawton] developed the original [ACSF] Industry Audit Standard. Really, 90 percent of the foundation back in the day was doing audit standards. Literally, that was the purpose of it.
How has the Air Charter Safety Foundation evolved?
When I started with the foundation, we had 30 members, and literally, that consisted of our entire board. We are now over 300 today. So, when you talk about growth, you talk about exponentially where we're at. I think what's really driving a lot of that, if not the majority of it, is our Aviation Safety Action Program [ASAP, a non-punitive voluntary safety reporting initiative]. That's been kind of the staple that has [grown] from what initially began as our Industry Audit Standard. After ACSF was formed, it really concentrated on the Industry Audit Standard and really didn't even consider ASAP till five years later.
How did you get involved with ASAP?
[ACSF] evolved and we became a little bit more creative. We started thinking about why the Part 121 world has ASAP, but Part 91 does not and relatively few 135 were participating. That was a huge turning point in the foundation: creating the relationship not only with the FAA headquarters but more importantly the Flight Standards District Offices in the field, to become recognized as a third-party program manager for the ASAP program. Russ and I went around the nation literally talking to all the FSDOs and introducing the ASAP concept in the early stages [to the industry]. Like most things, word of mouth just kind of began in the industry and we promoted the heck out of it. And so, we created an entire—how would you say—ASAP industry that was never considered in the past to mitigate risk and move the safety needle.
What’s been the result?
We've got well over 278 of what we refer to as ASAP certificates. We're managing about 222 companies, but they have multiple certificates. We’re about split right now between Part 135 and 91.
I think one of the major factors that validates everything we're doing in the ASAP space is that we have the FAA, especially in the FSDOs, reaching out to us to train their own inspectors on the ASAP program. The FAA has had its own challenges with attrition, staffing issues, and internally trying to keep inspectors current. We have built an enormous relationship with these folks to the point that there are times when they're referring operators to the Air Charter Safety Foundation if they want to start an ASAP program. So I mean, just back to the word of mouth is where it's coming from and the really solid trust relationship, this partnership, that truly makes it all work.
Was there reluctance for operators to sign onto a voluntary safety reporting program?
Russ and I always go back to 3M and Target, the Part 91 flight departments that really were the first to participate in the program even before 135 joined. We went around the country doing various regional forum presentations on the ASAP program. There absolutely was reluctance. There was the piece of why should we do this. However, we tapped into those folks [participating] and that started trickling into the system. We gave a venue [at our annual conference] to get operators that were participating in our ASAP program to tell the audience and the attendees the value and benefits of it. There wasn't any kind of directive that come out from the FAA. We just took the liberty of kind of growing it ourselves
Flight data monitoring is, in my view, a very similar path that we're taking with the challenges of folks being concerned about Big Brother looking.
These are all very similar challenges. You have to switch that conversation over to the impact it's having on enhancement in improving your operation from a safety component. It's the culture. And if you've got the right culture, it is hugely successful.
With ASAP rolling and the Industry Audit Standard getting regular customers, what was next for ACSF?
It led to what has now been a combination of the SMS [safety management system] program. As a component of ASAP, we were relying on many other commercial businesses that had SMS platforms, servers, and tools that we did not. Customer feedback, however, was “We would love to have one-stop shopping.” Basically, let's have everything reside under one server, under one platform. Because with all these programs, you have to make it simple in order for folks to participate. So that was another turning point for us a year ago or so.
By allowing the SMS platform to be introduced, now folks can file a combination of SMS reports and ASAP reports, under our QuickBase server. That was a big add to our initiatives and programs.
And then, what has been most recent in this past year has been flight data monitoring (FDM). We felt that was a natural evolution of the pathway to safety. If you look at all those steps [Industry Audit Standard, ASAP, SMS, and FDM], you are capturing a ton of data that analyzed properly and reviewed properly can improve what you're doing. I always look at that as peace of mind at the end of the day that you're doing everything through those channels to really manage your safety program as best as possible.
Did the NTSB coordinate with you or ask you to take on these roles?
No, never. Obviously, [former NTSB chair] Robert Sumwalt was very helpful with some direction and guidance. We just felt that it was right for our members.
When it comes to recommendations and the terms the [NTSB] always uses after an accident, it is encouraging and promoting safety programs by looking at what historically has been the domestic airlines' safety record. The airlines have three things that typically small and medium-sized operators do not: time, money, and resources. So, the airlines have all these wonderful programs. Historically, everything we just talked about they've had for years.
In a lot of these safety programs, there's the cost investment and you have members saying “Whoa, whoa, we’d love to participate, but who's going pay for that? How are we going to have time for this?”
When you're a large mega operator, even the fractional companies that have hundreds of aircraft in their fleet and hundreds of employees, that works on a scale of an airline. When you've got two aircraft and a dozen employees, you need help if you're really going to truly apply these safety programs and initiatives properly and monitor them, police them, provide feedback, and corrective action improvement.
The question has been how is this scalable to bring that to the Part 91 and Part 135 world? This has always been the challenge, and this is where the Foundation fits in. The Air Charter Safety Foundation comes in to try to help facilitate and manage. That's what made the ASAP program so successful, managing those programs as best we can.
That’s what we’re trying to do with flight data monitoring—let us help you because you don't necessarily have the time and the resources internally to do this yourself. So that's the next phase.
This interview has been edited and condensed.