Way back in the times nobody remembers anymore, and when there were only state-owned airlines in the sky, SAS was formed by the three Scandinavian countries. The pilots from the Danish part of SAS formed their union, called Danish Pilots Association domestically and Danish Air Line Pilot Union internationally. IFALPA was joined shortly after, in the late 1950s, and later Europilote/ECA.

Gradually charter companies became visible and in 1982 the pilots from Maersk Air joined the SAS pilots and DALPA was formed from the two pilot-associations. Liberalisation opened the way for more business for companies other than the flag carrier, both scheduled and charter.

Today, DALPA represents all professional Danish pilots and membership totals 1400. The board of DALPA meets regularly every other month and all associations have the opportunity to attend. Main players are representatives from SAS, Cimber Air and the umbrella organisation "FPU", which are representing: MyTravel Pilot Union, Sterling Airline Pilots Association, Star Air Cockpit association, Air Greenland Pilots association, Danish Offshore Helicopter union and several smaller associations from General Aviation.

DALPA is not involved in individual company negotiations, but deals with political, technical and industrial domestic and international business. DALPA is heavily engaged in the struggle to maintain safe flight and duty times in Scandinavia, compared to the European minimum standard of EU-OPS Subpart Q. DALPA is an active member of the European Cockpit Association (ECA) and supports ECA's work in many industrial and technical areas.

Teddy B. Iversen, Danish Air Line Pilots' Association