Jobs in Aviation: Inflight Safety Program manager

[In The News]

DALLAS – While pilots or flight attendants are the most well-known jobs in aviation, there are many individuals working behind the scenes in the air travel industry. If you are considering working for an airline, there are different options you might not know about.

The Airways‘ Jobs in Aviation series showcases interviews with individuals working in the aviation industry so our readers can learn more about their jobs and get a better understanding of the scope of the many jobs in commercial aviation. Our first interview with Catherine Jackson showcased the job of a flight dispatcher.

For this second interview, Airways had the opportunity to speak with Elise May, Inflight Safety Program Manager for Southwest Airlines (WN).

WN operates a fleet of more than 700 Boeing 737 aircraft, and has 400 units on order. Photo: Alberto Cucini / Airways

The Role of a Safety Program Manager

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Noam Ismaaili: Hello, and welcome to the interview. Could you first explain what your role at Southwest Airlines is?

Elise May: I am currently the Senior Program Manager of inflight safety and regulatory compliance at Southwest Airlines. My functions center around safety for our flight attendants and also building and maintaining good relationships with our regulators, such as the FAA or TSA.

I also manage our inflight fatigue risks management program for our flight attendants. We are currently in our third year, as I introduced the program and currently manage it. I am also involved in our aviation safety action program (ASAP). I started our ASAP program about 10 years ago and managed that for about 5 years. I currently work on flight attendants investigations, whether that is injuries, accidents, incidents, or anything unusual that takes place on the aircraft.

And for the last two years, I’ve been heavily involved in mask compliance issues, and working on investigations with the TSA and FAA, in their efforts to make passengers accountable for following the mask mandate, but also for the passenger not-compliance events, that those mask events can often lead to.

Have you encountered this type of mask event in the last two years?

Yes, we have had, as an industry in the US, a tremendous number of passengers not respecting the mask mandate, whether that would be a passenger not wearing the mask at all, or not wearing it properly, for example, only wearing it over their mouth but not over their nose.

And often when our flight attendants would go and remind them of the requirement, those situations would escalate and turn into not-compliance or even threat level events.

You are the Manager of the Program for inflight safety and regulatory compliance. What’s the work like? Do you lead a team?

I am a senior program manager, so I am managing programs versus managing people. I’m in a team with five other managers under the inflight safety umbrella, and we each have an area of expertise.

For example, one individual manages our assurance program, another individual manages our policies and procedures, and my area of expertise is on the safety and regulatory part.

How do you work with other departments, and which ones?

I would say that I probably work closest with our flight operations department, which represents our pilots, since our pilots and flight attendants work together. We work very closely together. Anytime there is a procedure change on one side, we will share it with the other just to make sure it goes into effect, and that it does not have any adverse consequences to a procedure of the other department.

The next would be the ground operations department, because again our flight attendants interact with their agents quite a lot. And again, we don’t want any procedure we change on the inflight side to affect other procedures on the ground operations side. To finish with, there is also a very strong relationship with our corporate safety department.

What’s your relationship with regulators like the FAA or the NTSB?

I work very closely with the FAA, NTSB, and, over the past two years, TSA, as we have been enforcing the mask mandate.

I am actually trained in the NTSB accident investigation course, so anytime there is a major accident, we only had a couple in our history, but I am the inflight liaison to the NTSB for their investigation.

And then of course FAA, to make sure all the regulations are being met, and if do have a violation, trying to determine root cause, and any type of corrective action for that. With the TSA, it has basically been for follow-up of masks events.

While the inflight safety department focuses on flight attendants, the flight operations department is more focused on pilots. Photo: Otto Kirchof/Airways

Life as a Program Manager

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Where are you based? Can you change your workplace during your career?

I live in Dallas, Texas, where our headquarters are. I’ve been living here for quite some time. However, we also offer remote work, so if someone chose to live somewhere outside of Dallas, that would be possible now, but our headquarters are in Dallas.

How’s the career mobility at your job?

I think work [should] be where the individual’s passion takes them. A job like this certainly gives you experience and exposure to different parts of the airline.

I think you could be well-equipped to take this knowledge to a corporate safety department, or a flight operations safety department. Anything that really focuses on safety, and regulatory compliance I think this position would set you up very well. Me, I am very happy where I am right now.

What’s the work schedule like?

I work quite a bit now that I am working remotely from home. Still, due to COVID, it’s a little bit harder to turn things off, and the day seems to go on longer than five o’clock.

There’s a lot of weekend work, and if an event happens on a plane at eight o’clock on a Thursday night, I’ll get a notification, or if it happens during the weekend, that may require some work being done then. I’m not sure if there actually is a typical day in the airline industry, but typically it’s a Monday to Friday job.

If there is an accident or an incident, do you have to go to the office?

I am actually part of our go team which deploys to the accident side, so if there is a significant event, or accident, yes. I would be deployed immediately to the accident location.

Do you get any special advantages at Southwest?

Yes, Southwest has great benefits for our employees. We can ride on an empty jump seat if there is a cabin jump seat available. We can use non-revenue travel on our airline for no cost. We have also reduced fares on other carriers for standby travel.

We have the typical benefits that most carriers offer.

Many airline employees get special advantages, such as low-price tickets. Photo: Michael Rodeback/Airways

Inflight Safety at Airlines

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What do you do when minor incidents occur?

Depending on what the minor incident is, it would necessitate following up with our crew, making sure that our crew is okay, and offering any assistance that they may need.

We may do a safety debrief, in which we would speak with the crew to get a better understanding of exactly what happened and judge if our procedures work as they were intended or if we have some opportunities for improvement.

Mainly, if it’s a minor incident, we just want to make sure we are giving our crew the care and support that they need afterward.

And what if a major accident happens?

We’ve been really fortunate that we’ve had very few major accidents with any fatalities involved. But if that were to happen, we have a go-team that is deployed immediately to the accident side, and I represent inflight safety on this team from the survival factors division, and I would work with the NTSB on that.

We also have family assistance employees who would go and support the families of our crews and passengers who were onboard. Of course, we would work under the direction of the NTSB and help as much as possible.

What are some longer-term projects you are working on to improve safety at your airline?

We are continuing to grow our fatigue program. As I mentioned, we have two years under our belt and we are just now into our third year. We will continue to evolve our safety management system (SMS) and look for the root causes of any incident or any systemic issues that we have.

We are also developing, and continuing to develop a very strong safety culture at the airline.

According to airlinedata.com, as of April 2022, WN operates an average of more than 3,500 flights a day. Photo: Michael Rodeback/Airways

Becoming an Inflight Safety Program Manager

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Can you take us through your career in aviation? How did you get to your current position?

Well, I started as a flight attendant. I was an international and domestic flight attendant, and I did that for about 10 years.

Then, I took a position in a training center and was a recurrent training facilitator for about a year. Then I came over to Southwest Airlines, where I have been 16 years, and I have worked in inflight communications, and inflight safety the rest of the time.

If somebody wanted to do a similar job, would he or she need special studies?

Aviation safety would definitely be important, and beneficial. There are so many universities now that have aviation majors, whether that is safety or management, or what that may look like. Any courses under those umbrellas would be really beneficial.

And I would say just having a good understanding of the airline industry and all the different parts. There is no one part that runs the airline, there are several parts that have to come together successfully to do that. I would say that any studies you can take in the aviation industry would be great.

What are the qualities needed to be an airline safety program manager?

I would say that you have to love regulations, and also stay within the lines because there are not a lot of grey areas. The regulations are there for a reason; to protect our employees and protect our customers, so a great understanding of those is required.

I would also say a good relationship with our regulators, including the FAA, the TSA, and the NTSB, making as many connections as possible. And then having good relations with counterparts at other carriers. I sit on the cabin operations committee of airlines for America (A4A).

I think having those connections between counterparts at the other carriers is incredibly beneficial. Safety is the only area where we are not competitive, so we share quite a bit of information and best practices, and really work together and collaboratively as an industry.

What are the main advantages and disadvantages of your job?

For advantages, I think you really get to see a global look at how the airline is run. When I was a flight attendant, I really had no knowledge that there were all these people sitting in their corporate offices doing all these things on my behalf to make sure my job was safe.

I think a huge advantage is that you really get an up-close look at all of the different parts of the airline and how they come together to create a successful operation.

As far as disadvantages, I don’t really think there are any because I love my job, and I love my role. I guess the only disadvantage is that things do not turn off at five o’clock. If you are looking for a Monday to Friday, nine to five this is probably not your job.

We’re at the end of our interview. Do you have any advice for those who want to take on the job of an airline safety program manager?

I would say to take advantage of every opportunity you have to learn about the aviation industry, to learn about cabin crew, and what they do on a day-to-day basis.

If you have experience as a cabin crew member, that would be really, really helpful—just having that knowledge of what is required in the day-to-day role.

I think having a general knowledge of flight operations and the pilot’s role is also important. And really, learn just as much as you possibly can about the airline that you are interested in joining.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us and give our readers a glimpse into the day-to-day of an airline safety program manager.

Until our next Jobs in Aviation interview, stay safe!

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Featured image: WN is a major US low-cost airline. Photo: Ryan Scottini/Airways

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