Pilot organization leaders who fly for SkyTeam, Star and oneworld Alliance carriers joined with leaders from the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) and the European Cockpit Association (ECA) in highlighting pilot fatigue as a leading threat to flight safety, and emphasized the need for new regulations addressing Europe’s future flight-time limitations.
As part of a meetingin Paris this week convened to discuss the fatigue issue and a range of other global airline industry concerns, this broad-based group of pilot leaders issued the following statement:
“The European Union has an important opportunity to provide Europe’s traveling public with safe flight-time limitations based on solid medical and fatigue science, as required by globally accepted International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards. ICAO recently issued a new standard that requires countries to adopt science-based flight-time limitations.”
“We are concerned that the European Aviation Safety Agency’s latest proposal falls well short of grasping this important opportunity by disregarding medical and scientific evidence in numerous key areas. Notably, the EASA proposal does not comply with the ICAO standard.”
“Accordingly, we call on EASA and EU policy-makers to make enhancements to flight safety a top priority by developing a new set of EU rules that are expressly designed to protect the traveling public by mitigating well-known safety risks posed by pilot fatigue.”
“The professional airline pilots we represent join with IFALPA, the ECA and other stakeholders in supporting new European flight-time limitations that are science-based and reflect the participation of all stakeholders, including air crew representatives. Our goal is to produce regulations that comply with ICAO standards, including ICAO provisions on Fatigue Risk Management Systems and ICAO’s recently adopted joint implementation principles and guidelines.”
Download Press statement here.
The Associations of Star Alliance Pilots (ASAP) (ASAP) is a formalization of the close ties of the pilot groups of the carriers that are members of the Star Alliance.– See: http://starpilots.org/
The Oneworld Cockpit Crew Coalition (OCCC) represents more than 28,000 pilots from the airlines in the oneworld alliance. – See: http://www.oneworldpilots.org/
The SkyTeam Pilots Association (SPA) consists of representatives of pilots from nine member airlines around the world who maintain international codeshare agreements with each other. The SPA represents over 25.000 professional pilots.
The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) stands for 100.000 professional pilots represented by 100 Member Associations around the world. – See: http://www.ifalpa.org/
The European Cockpit Association (ECA) is the representative body of European pilot associations, representing over 38.000 pilots from across Europe. – See: www.eurocockpit.be
