About Us - FRMS Forum

The international Regulator community for airlines have published guidelines to encourage airline operators introduce a Fatigue Risk Management System into their organisation.

The Fatigue Risk Management Forum was initially created specifically to help the commercial aviation industry both to respond to the Regulator’s initiative and manage the fatigue inherent in the daily lives of aircrew and front line maintenance teams. Since conception in 2008, it is clear that FRMS has an application in other industries such as Air Traffic Control, Health, Rail, Road and maritime transport. Accordingly, all organisations that must manage the risk of employee fatigue, irrespective of industry sector, are welcome as members.

BENEFITS OF FRMS

An integrated FRMS can increase safety and employee satisfaction by actively managing fatigue in pilots, aircrew, maintenance and ground staff.

MEMBERSHIP

All organisations and individuals with an interest in improving occupational alertness are welcome to join the FRMS Forum and contribute to its success.

TERMS OF REFERENCE

The aim of this Forum is to openly discuss FRMS issues and collaboratively build a body of knowledge for the establishment of Best Practise for the unencumbered use of members.

MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

The management committee was elected at the inaugural meeting on 8th May 2009 by those attending that meeting. The current committee members are those shown below.

THE FRMS FORUM PRIZE

Aimed squarely at the younger part of our community who we wish to encourage to be dynamic, innovative, and develop fatigue science or use it within FRMS within the aviation industry.

GOVERNING PRINCIPLES

These are the Principles that are required to describe the manner in which the Forum will operate and be managed on behalf of the membership.

The aviation industry is ahead of other industries in actively managing fatigue. A Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) will help to actively manage the effects of fatigue in airline staff and guidelines released from ICOA 2010 has encouraged airline operators to embed the FRMS within the airline’s Safety Management System (SMS).

The development of an FRMS can be based on the recommendations contained within ICAO Annex 6 guidance and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), and other national regulators’ FRMS regulation requirements. Whilst this initiative will encourage an improvement in airline safety, it will necessarily place an initial burden on airlines as they create and introduce a system.

This burden may be simply born wholly by the operator or it may be reduced by a process of sharing knowledge and experience through the FRMS Forum.

The concept of the FRMS Forum evolved as it was clear that Airlines would be cautious to invest in any new management process unless the initial risks were mitigated in some way. By creating a Forum for all members to contribute to developing FRMS processes through sharing knowledge and experiences, the financial and operational risk is significantly reduced. Indeed, some members who were early to adopt FRMS have already shown a return on this investment so it is now self-funding.

Thank You

The representatives of the airlines, scientists, regulators who have created this Forum have generously offered to share their valuable advice, experience and knowledge gratis. They have done this in order to benefit all passengers and crew who travel on all airlines world wide. It is anticipated that this act of generosity will show others the importance of embedding an FRMS in every Safety Management System and encourage the early adoption of FRMS by the whole airline operator community, irrespective of size, for the benefit all passengers and crew.

Thanks to all of them for taking this important step.