Early August I attended the 58th Air Safety Forum (ASF) in Washington DC on the theme “Everything matters”. It dealt with items varying from Aviation Security, Pilot Assistance, Fatigue Management Systems and Programs, Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Automation and Technology. Attending the forum were knowledgeable speakers from Industry, Government, Airline Management and Pilot experts. It showed me again how much knowledge and dedication there is in the professional pilot world and how it is appreciated by Governments and Industry. 

The ASF presented a good opportunity to discuss possible cooperation with ALPA on the issues of the SESAR Introduction in Europe and NexGen in the USA. We had a successful first meeting with the experts of ALPA and discussed how we can make sure that when the different systems are to be implemented respectively in Europe and the USA, there will be no conflicting systems or procedures. Fortunately, ECA pilot experts are strongly involved in the creation of SESAR and this is also the case with ALPA experts in the developments of NextGen.  

Further, I had the chance to discuss several issues with the leadership of the SoutWest Airline Pilot Association. Despite following the same business model, Ryanair and SouthWest are the perfect examples to illustrate discrepancies due to a different management approach. While SouthWest puts forward the importance of its employees and creates a very open culture of trust, Ryanair is mostly concerned with profitability. I will write more about this at a later stage.

This month there has been much attention on the low fuel emergencies of three Ryanair aircraft over Valencia. Investigation by the Spanish Authorities is still underway but we see a big difference in how the pilot world sees this and how Ryanair management talks about it. We all know that fuel prices are very high and are one of the biggest costs for the airlines. The airlines ask their pilots to carry as little fuel during the flight as is safe. Most airlines have guidelines how to deal with this. However some airlines push these guidelines so far that the pilot’s decision to take more than the minimum fuel is very hard to take. The investigation will have to clarify whether this was the case for the three fuel emergencies that took place.

Finally, I want to welcome to the team our new Communications Officer, Kameliya Encheva, who started her work within ECA on 27 August.