During the well attended ECA Conference / Regional Meeting in Istanbul, the ECA Conference empowered the ECA Executive Board to sign the ECA-IFALPA protocol. The signing ceremony took place in plenary and marked a historic moment: the European Cockpit Association became the first regional body of IFALPA. A necessary, challenging, and intensive process came to an end. In addition to representing the EU interest of over 36.400 European flight crew members, ECA now takes on board the full representation of IFALPA in Europe.
In his speech following the signing ceremony, ECA president Martin Chalk underlined the importance of unity amongst pilots. Unity is the strength that has been the basis for our success in the past. Unity will also be the empowerment of our success in the future.
The aviation world around us is changing at a steady pace. Experts predict that globalisation, liberalisation and consolidation will continue. We are expected to end up with traditional Network Carriers that will have consolidated into a few large Trans National Airlines or Airline Groupings in each region of the world. The same goes for the many, many Low Cost Carriers; they too are expected to merge into - or with each other. So in every region of the world, only a few big LCCs are expected to remain.
The consequence of this trend for pilot representation is that the focus shifts from a National perspective to a more Trans National or even Regional perspective. It goes without saying that the work done nationally is still the backbone of pilot representation. But we have recognized that representing pilots nationally is not enough anymore. We can no longer cope with the development of aviation through our national structures alone. Aviation laws and regulations are more and more created in Brussels. Proper representation of, for instance the Air France and KLM pilots would not be possible without close and cross border cooperation of two ECA Member Associations. Pilot representation within the existing Trans National Airlines will not be possible unless national pilots' associations cooperate, come to mutual agreements and if necessary form trans national pilot representative bodies.
That is why ECA was restructured: to be able - as a more efficient and more effective organisation - to influence these developments. That is why IFALPA was restructured: to have more and direct input from the regions into the governing body of the federation. Through the restructuring, all Member Associations in the IFALPA European region can now join ECA either as full or as associate member. This makes it possible for all European pilots to speak with a united ECA voice to the European institutions and other stakeholder organisations. The restructuring has further strengthened the unity of ECA and IFALPA.
In practical life there is a rather clear distinction between ECAs responsibilities and those of IFALPA. Regarding technical representation a lot of coordination between both organisations is already taking place and will be enhanced. Factors such as which external organisation has taken initiative, where do meetings take place, what is the scope of the subjects etc. will be taken into account when coordinating. Officers of ECA and IFALPA have already been working close together in the past. I am convinced now that both organisations are united we will see an even closer cooperation in the future.
ECA and IFALPA? We are looking at a "flying start".
Henk de Vries, ECA Vice President
