European Cockpit Association Wants to Lower Flight Times
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
According to a recent story in Fox News, the European Cockpit Association wants to lower flight times for its airline pilots to avoid fatigue and lower the risk of accidents. Pilots and cabin crews typically have long day and night time duty hours, and these can be as long as 11 to 12 hours (or more), depending on the route. The ECA wants the EU’s European Aviation Safety Agency to impose rules and regulations that would reduce the number of hours to just 10 hours per shift. This would allow pilots to get enough rest or sleep between shifts, and may also reduce the risk of an accident or mistakes made in by crewmembers.
The President of the European Cockpit Association, Martin Chalk, accuses airlines of causing a delay in making these changes in fear of higher costs to staff their planes. However, the ECA is encouraging the aviation safety agency to take action and to set some guidelines for all pilots and crewmembers in the industry.
The Independent of Ireland reports that the pilots began to hand out leaflets to passengers on certain trips because they felt that crew fatigue could be a threat to passenger and pilot safety. Still, the Association of European Airlines reports that the theory is ‘flawed’, and that this would cost the airlines 1 billion Euros a year just to implement and maintain.
The airline unions want to introduce the changes as soon as April 2012, so they are looking for ways to encourage the agencies to take notice and start setting down the new rules and regulations.
Hundreds of deaths related to airplane crashes have been document to date, and some investigations point to pilot and crew member fatigue as the reason for the accident. The ECA is determined to continue to press the regulators to impose the guidelines as soon as possible.