This paper describes the position of Europe’s professional pilots on the standards and rules necessary for the safe use of drones in EASA’s ‘Open’ category. Acknowledging the potential this technology has for innovation and benefit to society, it is absolutely critical that the technology

To ensure a continuous improvement in Europe’s collective safety performance, it is crucial to regularly assess the functioning of the system. This includes the dynamics stemming from new ways operators set up their business and flight operations within Europe’s single market, and from new

The European Cockpit Association (ECA) is concerned by the growing trend among airlines to outsource pilots’ initial training and to charge exorbitant fees for the in-house training courses they provide. ECA firmly rejects “Pay to Fly” schemes and considers that a pilot in line training

The Single European Sky initiative – set to modernise our airspace – outlines ambitious targets that will create a completely new operational environment, based on trajectory management, highly performing technologies and a much more strategic role for the flight crew. 

Improving aviation security is an ambitious task which requires a holistic approach. Key elements of such strategy are stepping from a reactive perspective to a more proactive and predictive one, integrating threat assessment, risk management, differentiation, unpredictability, randomness

Safe, fast and affordable air travel is a common desire of any passenger. To achieve this, the legislator set the ground for the airlines to compete freely with each other. Nonetheless, while ‘competition’ has become the name of the game, “unfair” is the term that has started to creep in –

Since 28 October 2014, Safety Management System (SMS) and Fatigue Risk Management (FRM) are expected to be reality in every European airline. No doubt this will be a change of paradigm. From the rostering and safety department’s point of view, it will not be sufficient anymore to schedule

Remote Tower Services (RTS) is a new concept where the air traffic service at an airport is performed remotely, i.e. somewhere else than in the local control tower. Over the coming decade, this concept is likely to develop further, to gain maturity, and to gradually spread within the

The IFALPA Security Committee recently agreed on a principle where notification about a credible threat to a specific flight should always be given immediately, without delay, to the aircraft commander (together with some other entities). This principle was motivated by some recent