Resilient Performance in Aviation

Resilience is defined as “the intrinsic ability of a system to adjust its functioning prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances, so that it can sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions” (Woods & Hollnagel, 2006, p. xxxvi). If there was ever an industry that has demonstrated this ability, it is the aviation industry. The industry has continually demonstrated the ability to adjust and sustain operations after unexpected events, and has improved both reliability and safety in the midst of increasing complexity of the aircraft, economic challenges, and aviation systems that are dependent on a range of different organizations to succeed (Hoyland & Aase, 2008). It has been proposed that resilience is a characteristic of system performance, not the system itself (Hollnagel, 2011), and therefore it is fitting to examine the aspects of aviation that enable it to demonstrate resilient performance. This chapter presents a discussion of resilient performance in aviation, including what resilient performance looks like in aviation, how it is currently achieved, and methods to further advance resilient performance in the future.