What the IATA boss thinks about the single pilot cockpit
GENEVA – EASA is pushing ahead, pilot representatives are warning of an avoidable erosion of flight safety – the single-pilot cockpit is dividing the industry into two camps. IATA CEO Willie Walsh would board a single-pilot plane for only one reason.
Europe is taking the initiative: At the end of November, EU countries, EASA and Eurocontrol asked ICAO to draw up a set of rules for scheduled flights “with an optimized crew/single pilot”. First a pilot in cruise flight, later generally a person in the cockpit should be sufficient.
IATA boss Willie Walsh, himself a 737 pilot at Aer Lingus at the beginning of his career, thinks absolutely nothing of this idea.
“I don’t expect that we’ll ever go to single-pilot operations,” Walsh said at a World Airlines Association media briefing in Geneva in early December. Walsh considers flights with only one pilot in the airliner cockpit to be out of the question “in the next maybe 25 years”.
EASA, on the other hand, expects further technological breakthroughs in automated flying, which will make double occupancy of the cockpit unnecessary.
“This inevitably means a shift in the role of the pilot, moving from being a physical aviator to being a systems manager,” the paper said.
The gradual transition to a single-pilot operation is intended to alleviate a global pilot shortage, but also to reduce airlines’ operating costs. The acceptance of the passengers is still completely open. He himself would only get on “because I’m a pilot myself and can take over if in doubt,” joked Walsh.
Safety-relevant systems and electrical and hydraulic circuits are usually present at least twice in aircraft. After the European push, pilot associations had urgently warned against breaking the basic rule of redundancy in the cockpit of all places.
EASA does not want to downplay safety risks either. According to the authority, these are conceivable “particularly in the introductory phase of the new technology”.
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