The Latest Threat to Air Safety? Only One Pilot on the Flight Deck

There’s Safety in Numbers: Let’s Keep Two Pilots at the Controls

Reducing the number of pilots on the flight deck risks the industry’s exemplary safety record

The latest: Some aircraft manufacturers are pushing to reduce the number of pilots at the controls during certain periods of a flight, using a concept known as extended minimum crew operations (eMCO), which is a fancy way of saying single-pilot flight operations.

• What does that mean? Under such a proposal, only one pilot would be required to remain at the controls for extended periods during cruise while a second, resting pilot would be located outside of the flight deck, unable to assist in case of an emergency.

Why it matters: This single-pilot operations proposal is currently under evaluation by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the European counterpart to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

• A dangerous precedent: This proposal threatens air safety worldwide, including the U.S. If EASA approves the plan, the FAA will be pressured to follow suit, opening up a dangerous race to the bottom with single-pilot operations becoming the standard.

“We cannot allow foreign regulators to grease the skids for their manufacturers, trying to force our hand to undermine safety in our country,” ALPA President Capt. Jason Ambrosi said at a recent luncheon.

Why this is wrong: Every aspect of flight safety is deliberately designed for a team with shared responsibilities working together on the flight deck. Removing one pilot introduces unnecessary safety risks, including during emergencies when every second counts. Read more about why two pilots on every flight deck are critical.

What’s really going on: It’s all about increasing profit at the expense of safety.

• Creating cost savings: Reducing pilots on the flight deck — even for just portions of a flight — would reduce costs by eliminating the need for more than two pilots on board long-haul flights and allowing the industry to skirt regulations governing maximum flight time for pilots on shorter flights.

The bottom line: Pilots have spent decades making airline operations the safest form of transportation in the world. Removing pilots from the flight deck is nothing less than a recipe for disaster.