Conversation Aviation 3-2026 - Go Safe Together This Winter

The Winter 2026 edition of Conversation Aviation is here! This time, we're focusing on something that matters throughout aviation, but becomes particularly important when winter brings additional challenges: working together to keep our operations safe.

Winter has a way of testing even the best-prepared organisations. Weather changes, aircraft need de-icing, runway conditions deteriorate, turnarounds take longer and operational pressure builds. But the biggest safety challenges are rarely solved by one person, one department or even one organisation.

That's why our theme for this edition is Go Safe Together When It Matters Most.

Whether you're a pilot, cabin crew member, ground handler, engineer, air traffic controller, airport operator or safety manager, you have a part to play. And just as importantly, the people and organisations around you do too.

What's inside this edition?

We start with Winter Starts Before the Snow, looking at how organisations can identify their biggest winter operational risks, learn from previous seasons and make sure their safety barriers will still work when conditions become difficult.

But winter safety is only part of the conversation.

This edition also explores some broader questions about how we create and maintain safe operations:

• The Hidden Risk of Success: When everything appears to be going well, how do we make sure we don't overlook the work that keeps us safe?
• When Safety Falls Down the Gaps: Why some of our biggest vulnerabilities exist between departments and organisations, rather than within them.
• Safety Starts Before the Passengers Board: How decisions made in commercial, customer service and support functions can influence operational safety long before a flight begins.
• The Conversations That Keep Us Safe: Making better use of briefings and debriefings to share information, anticipate problems and learn from everyday operations.
• Seeing and Being Seen: How airlines, General Aviation and local aviation communities can work together to reduce the risk of mid-air collisions.

There are also practical articles on de-icing, protective breathing equipment and cabin crew training, deferred defects, looking after our people and the new European ground handling rules.

We open the magazine with a guest article from Dr Hassan Shahidi, President and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, reflecting on his conversation with EASA Executive Director Florian Guillermet about safety leadership and turning good intentions into meaningful action.

Safety doesn't belong to one department

One message runs through the whole magazine: people create safety, but they need the right systems, information and support to do it.

A ground handler might notice something that an airport operator needs to address. A maintenance decision might have consequences for flight or cabin operations. An occurrence report might reveal a problem that crosses several organisational boundaries.

The important question isn't simply whether everyone has done their own job. It's whether we're connecting the information, decisions and people needed to make the whole operation safe.

And when the pressure is on, those connections matter more than ever.

Download, share and start a conversation

As always, Conversation Aviation is designed to be used, not simply read.

[Download Conversation Aviation 3-2026 – Winter Safety (PDF)]

If you're responsible for safety promotion, training or operational communications in your organisation, please share the magazine with your colleagues. Use an article in a team briefing, discuss a question at your next safety meeting or take one of the topics into a conversation with your airport, airline or service-provider partners.

We'd particularly encourage you to think about three questions as winter approaches:

What are the biggest risks in our own operation? What should stop them becoming serious events? And are we confident those controls will work when we need them most?

We'd love to hear how your organisation is preparing for winter and what you're doing to strengthen cooperation across the aviation system. Share your experiences and ideas here on the Air Ops Community.

Go Safe Together - When It Matters Most.