First of all — congratulations!

Becoming the Safety Manager in an organisation holding an Air Operator Certificate (AOC), Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO) approval, and Approved Maintenance Organisation (AMO / Part-145) approval is both a significant responsibility and a tremendous opportunity.

Remember: the Accountable Manager carries ultimate accountability for safety. You are now the central focal point for the Safety Management System (SMS) across flight operations, continuing airworthiness, and maintenance. Your real value lies in driving proactive safety management, not merely reacting to incidents.

Here’s a realistic, step-by-step roadmap to help you succeed in your first year.

🗓️ Day 1 – Listen, Observe & Build Foundations

Your first day is about orientation and building relationships, not making big changes.

• Meet the Accountable Manager first (they carry ultimate accountability) and complete all necessary onboarding and administrative formalities (including Part-IS).
• Ask the Accountable Manager to introduce you to the other key postholders: Nominated Person for Flight Operations, Continuing Airworthiness Manager, Maintenance Manager (Accountable Manager for Part-145), and Compliance Monitoring Manager.
• Verify the company’s certifications and specific approvals. Obtain a copy of the Organisation Management Manual (OMM). If not available. giva us a call +41 79 287 80 99.
• Request full access to the safety reporting system, document management system, and SMS records for at least the last five years.
• Request a high-level tour of the facilities (hangar, maintenance bays, operations/control room, and offices, as applicable).
• Review the SMS fundamentals. Ask for the current Safety risk profile, Safety Policy and objectives, SPIs, SPTs, the latest Safety Review Board (SRB) minutes, Management of Change (MoC) records, and continuous improvement logs. Verify that SMS training has been delivered and to what standard (not just generic LMS modules); ensuring that HF safety best practices are well embedded in the system.
• Confirm your own competence requirements. If you need any specific competence-based training, feel free to reach out at +41 79 287 80 99.
• Meet with the Compliance Monitoring Manager (CMM) and the Nominated Person for Information Security (Part-IS) to ensure full system integration.
• Prepare for acceptance by the competent authority (this may involve an interview or a simple CV submission, as applicable).

Pro tip:Spend more time listening than talking. Take time to understand the current safety culture before attempting to improve it.

📅 Week 1 – Understand the “As-Is” Picture

Focus on learning the existing system and documentation.

• Read the OMM/SMS Manual and Safety Policy. Ensure relevant parts of the CAMO exposition (and ideally the Part-145 exposition) are properly integrated.
• Review the current Hazard Register / Risk Register, Safety Objectives, SPIs/SPTs, and recent safety reports. Are the main safety risks adequately covered, mitigated, and regularly reviewed?
• Study the latest internal and external audit reports and any open findings.
• Meet key people across departments (pilots, engineers, technicians, planners, and the quality/compliance team).
• Understand how safety reporting works (as further explained) in practice and how Just Culture is applied day-to-day.
• Map the interfaces between AOC ↔ CAMO ↔ AMO — these are often where the greatest risks lie.

📆 Month 1 – Assess & Build Relationships

This is your diagnostic phase.

• Conduct (or review) a gap analysis of the current SMS against EASA requirements (ORO.GEN.200, CAMO.A.200, 145.A.200, IS.I.OR.200) and ICAO Annex 19.
• Start building your personal safety library — begin with ICAO Doc 9859 (Safety Management Manual), 5th Edition (applicable from November 2026).
• Analyse the main safety risks, associated control barriers, and data trends. Identify the top hazards that the current system has not yet fully addressed.
• Schedule one-on-one meetings with department heads and safety focal points.
• Begin visible, positive safety leadership (e.g., short safety messages or a “Safety Moment” at the start of meetings) — always aligned with the Accountable Manager.
• Ensure you fully understand the Emergency Response Plan (ERP) and your role within it, including induction, initial and recurrent training plan). If you need one, just give us a call +41 79 287 80 99.
• Focus on building trust — people must feel safe to report to you.
• Review SMS training requirements in the OMM and begin delivering (or arranging) internal training for staff and contractors.

Goal by the end of Month 1: You should have a clear picture of strengths, gaps, and quick wins.

📬 Just in case regarding – Safety Reporting: A Mirror of Company Culture (Or, as we like to say in aviation: “But here nobody reports.”)

Safety reporting is the clearest reflection of a company’s, and often an entire country’s, culture, along with all the colourful subcultures that flourish inside individual departments.

The question is always brutally simple: Is it working, or is it just a problem?

The quality and quantity of safety reports depend directly on the strength of visible, positive safety leadership from the Accountable Manager and the wider leadership team, together with the actual maturity of the Safety Management System (SMS).

While the “messengers” who file the reports must be properly trained in both the what and the how of reporting, the final outcome never depends on them alone. People need to see real impact, issues turning into new competencies, improved procedures, or stronger barriers. Without visible change, even the best-trained reporters eventually go quiet.

That is why safety promotion and communication activities must be continuous, credible, and relentless. Equally critical is how safety reporting is perceived inside the organisation and how genuinely welcoming and supportive the competent authority proves to be.

Ultimately, effective safety reporting hinges on three things:

• How well we train our people,
• How clearly we define what they are expected to report, and
• The real level of Just Culture and positive safety leadership delivered through a mature SMS.

In short: you can have the most sophisticated reporting system in the world, but if the culture is whispering “don’t rock the boat,” the reports will dry up, and the mirror will show you exactly why.

🗓️ First 6 Months – Implement & Drive Improvement

Now you move from understanding to action.

• Develop and obtain approval for a Safety Improvement/Action Plan based on your gap analysis and data.
• Facilitate hazard identification and risk assessment workshops, especially at the critical AOC–CAMO–AMO-Part-IS interfaces (including contractors).
• Strengthen the safety reporting system and, most importantly, close the feedback loop to reporters.
• Roll out or enhance safety training (induction, initial, and recurrent) across the organisation.
• Monitor the effectiveness of existing risk controls and safety action plans.
• Actively participate in (or lead) the Safety Review Board (SRB) and Safety Action Groups.
• Start measuring and reporting genuine safety performance improvements to senior management.
• Build your external network — connect with other Safety Managers in similar organisations.
• Benchmark your SMS with external organizations and stat sharing your experience.

🗓️ First Year – Embed & Demonstrate Results

By the end of your first year, you should be able to show tangible progress.

• Complete a full SMS effectiveness review (normally conducted annually at SRB, including CMS and Part-IS). The EASA MS Assessment Tool is a good tool for this.
• Demonstrate measurable improvements in:
• Successfully support all regulatory oversight and audit activities.
• Establish a mature, living SMS that is genuinely integrated into daily operations (not just a manual on the shelf).
• Document your achievements and lessons learned.

✅ Key Success Factors Throughout the Year

• Build strong relationships first, technical knowledge alone is not enough.
• Stay data-driven but people-focused.
• Be consistent with Just Culture, this is how you earn trust.
• Collaborate closely with the Compliance Monitoring Manager (your natural partner).
• Never stop learning, regulations, human factors, investigation techniques, and industry best practices continue to evolve.
• Protect your own wellbeing, the role can be demanding.

Final Thought

The best Safety Managers don’t “own” safety, they enable the entire organisation to own it. Your success will not be measured by how many findings you close, but by how much the organisation improves its proactive safety performance and manages risk intelligently every single day.

You’ve got this! If not, just give us a call +41 79 287 80 99 or visit mycs.swiss/sm