It is intended that the scope of this standard addresses responsibilities associated with each contracted phase. It should be recognised that residual duties may exist outside of the scope of contract and that provision for these lies with the relevant holder of the duty.

This standard has been written to consider application from the earliest lifecycle phase; however the requirements are applicable wherever in the lifecycle it is originally applied. It is likely that if applied later in the lifecycle, the activities performed and the nature of the outputs from these activities will be different than if applied from the outset, but in all cases these should be appropriate to demonstrate that the duties have been upheld.

This Part 3 has been created to provide an alternative to Part 1 that takes advantage of particular characteristics of the Air Sector that provide a basis for contracting for safety management. These include the use of Approved Organization Schemes managed by a regulatory body, and the wide availability of recognised good practice from the Civil Aviation sector.

As much of the content of Part 3 has been derived from the Civil Aviation sector practice, in particular the ICAO material on SMSs, the structure of Part 3 does not directly relate to that in Part 1, and there is no direct clause by clause equivalence.