COPENHAGEN, November 24, 2025 – The biggest risk to aviation safety in Europe is complacency, arising as a consequence of the industry’s strong safety performance in the region in recent years, speakers at this year’s European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s Annual Safety Conference asserted.
Meanwhile in an ever more complex operating landscape, existing rules needed to be reviewed, updated and simplified to create greater focus on the safety issues that really matter today, to reduce the administrative burden and to iron out inconsistencies.
“In aviation, we have to constantly reconsider how safe we are,” said EASA Executive Director Florian Guillermet. “Our discussions show that we are starting to get a better grip on the safety risks at stake today and that we have a common mindset. Now we need to come together to take the right actions, including to ensure that we don’t do compliance for the sake of compliance but for the sake of safety, to keep safety standards high, while ensuring we have competitive European aviation industry.”
Speakers warned that accidents had too often been only narrowly averted in recent years. As examples, they cited runway incursions, and erroneous settings in aircraft altimeters, meaning the pilot has false information on how close the aircraft was to the ground. Lithium batteries presented a growing hazard, they noted, evidenced by recent outbreaks of fire onboard. Most passengers typically travel with multiple such devices.
A show of hands poll of the audience showed unanimous support for the concept of rule simplification and smart regulation. At the same time many speakers illustrated that this is a complex task, to ensure that the framework is fully fit for purpose and that safety is not in the end compromised by the removal or change of a requirement. EASA noted that it has already embarked on rule simplification by launching a stakeholder survey and all parties agreed that the EASA Member States will have an essential important role to play in this process to ensure that the right decisions are taken.
The 2025 EASA Annual Safety Conference took place in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 12-13, 2025 as an in-person event with the theme “Aviate-Navigate-Communicate – Safety Today, Safety Cross-Domain, Safety Tomorrow”. The conference was held in cooperation with the Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority, under the auspices of the Danish EU Presidency.
The event page offers full information on the conference, including a link to recordings of the full conference.
