Numerous Airlines and regulators are pushing for single pilot flights to lower the costs despite several safety concerns.
The request was made to cut the costs and ease pressure from crew shortages, putting more pressure and responsibility on a single pilot which is unsettling for some.
In a report released by the Seattle Times, it was revealed that more than “40 countries including Germany, the U.K. and New Zealand have asked the United Nations body that sets aviation standards to help make single-pilot flights a safe reality.”
“The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has also been working with planemakers to determine how solo flights would operate and preparing rules to oversee them. EASA said such services could start in 2027,” the report added.
However, the plan sparked criticisms among the pilots, citing safety concerns and added that this would also be a hard sell for passengers.
Airbus SE A330 captain for Qantas Airways and president of the Australian & International Pilots Association Tony Lucas, released an official statement and expressed his concern that a single pilot might be overwhelmed by an emergency before anyone else has time to reach the cockpit to help.
“The people going down this route aren’t the people who fly jets every day. When things go awry, they go awry fairly quickly.” Lucas explained.
The Seattle Times also backed up Lucas’ statement and said in its report that it’s “what happened on board Air France Flight 447 on its way to Paris from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009. With the plane cruising at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean and the captain resting in the cabin, the two co-pilots in the cockpit started receiving faulty speed readings, likely from frozen detector tubes outside the aircraft.”
“By the time the captain got to the cockpit 90 seconds later, the plane was in an aerodynamic stall from which it never recovered. Less than three minutes later, it hit the water, killing all 228 people on board,” the report further described.
The training captain also expressed his concern that this new proposal would lose opportunities to mentor junior pilots if flight crew members are working increasingly on their own.
Meanwhile, in an EU request to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the UN aviation standards body, it was claimed that single-pilot operations is at least as safe as with two people at the controls.
“The psychological barriers are probably harder than the technological barriers. The technology is there for single pilots, it’s really about where the regulators and the general public feel comfortable.” Boeing Co. Southeast Asia President Alexander Feldman said during his speech at a Bloomberg business summit in Bangkok last week.
