David Learmount, the Operations and Safety Editor for Flight International magazine has won a prestigious journalism award for an editorial encouraging an open reporting culture about safety-related flying incidents.

He was presented with the European Regions Airlines Association (ERA) Hank McGonagle Journalism Award - which “seeks to recognise clear and objective journalistic reporting through analysis of a strategic issue facing the intra-European air transport industry” - for his opinion article entitled Just Culture, published on 18 April.

David Learmount and ERA gongERA director general Mike Ambrose, who chaired the judging, said: “David’s editorial highlighted the importance of non-disciplinary incident reporting, and went further by speaking out against national judicial systems which have so far failed to incorporate the European Commission’s directive on occurrence reporting in civil aviation into their national law.

“It is exactly this kind of influence on a subject that is vital to the airline industry and all its passengers which the media can and should take on board,” he added.

The judges also gave a strong commendation to Airline Business’s former European editor Colin Baker for his freelance article, Taxing Times.

Source: FlightGlobal.com