International standardization compliance in aviation

•Overall, as compliance with ICAO standards increased, fatality rates decreased.•States with low levels of GDP and high populations had the largest fatality rates.•As compliance increased, states with high populations had greater fatality rates.•Fatality rates decreased as compliance increased for medium and low populations.•All states in the high GDP range had fatality rates below 1 per 10,000 departures.

The commercial aviation industry is global in the sense that passengers travel around the world from destination to destination. It is also global in that the states of the world (countries) regulate the industry domestically and internationally. There is a unique stage where the world comes together to promote aviation, discuss ideas and establish international standards. This stage is the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The 191 current member states signed treaties acknowledging their commitment to abiding by the standards and practices established by ICAO. No state is 100 percent compliant with international standards, however, and the purpose of this paper was to explore the relationship between the fulfillment of compliance by individual member states and the safety of the commercial aviation industry in terms of fatality rates. Using a Negative Binomial regression, the results suggested that there was a relationship between compliance with international safety standards and fatalities, as well as associations between fatality rates and member states levels of GDP and population. Implications of this research apply to all ICAO member states as the concerns grow over growing air travel and airspace congestion over the next several decades.