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Case Study

British Airways: Safety leadership programme

The task

Design, manage and implement a safety leadership programme to bolster ground operations and engineering functions.

British Airways: Safety leadership programme

What we did

Lloydmasters developed and launched Our First Priority? - a 3-tiered programme designed to address a specific set of learning objectives.

1. Leadership – Shaping the Safety Culture

The Leadership event looked at incidents inside and outside of the aviation industry, the latest academic thinking and global best practice. It centered on the impact of senior leaders in shaping the safety culture.

2. Frontline Leaders – Driving the Safety Culture

Based on real aircraft incidents, The Frontline Leaders used scenarios to focus on the direct interface between British Airways functions and the aircraft. This event concentrated on the frontline leaders’ ability to directly influence the overall safety by identifying hazards, mindfulness and interaction with colleagues.

3. Frontline – Living the Safety Culture

For the 5,000 frontline staff, the programme was founded on the creation of a film highlighting an aviation scenario embracing factors such as risk blindness, communication, interfaces and performance pressures.

In demonstrating tangible benefits to British Airways, a key element of these programmes was to ensure outcomes and actions were linked to individuals’ personal objectives, proving to be an extremely powerful mechanism for driving the desired safety culture.

The results

Positive delegate feedback reaffirmed the tangible benefits of the programme to British Airways.

Through the roll-out of the Leadership programme to over 250 senior leaders, Lloydmasters was able to gain powerful insights into the safety culture of the organisation, leading to the development of a comprehensive safety culture assessment for presentation to British Airways Safety Board.

The programme was further extended to a larger leadership population, reaching over 400 of the senior leaders in Operations and Engineering.

A true test of the value of the programme is its transferability across British Airways functions – the programme was subsequently rolled out to over 120 senior leaders in the In Flight Cabin Experience (IFCE) directorate.

‘Lloydmasters quickly integrated and became part of our extended team’

British Airways, Senior Manager

‘This course was without doubt the most engaging event that I have attended.’

‘One of the best programmes I have attended - It has changed the way I consider safety.’

‘Exactly what a training day should deliver – enjoyable, thought-provoking and educational.’