Airlines push for lone pilot flights to cut costs despite safety fears

Airlines and regulators are working to have only one pilot in the cockpit of passenger planes instead of two. It would reduce costs and ease the pressure of a crew shortage, but placing such responsibility on a single person at the controller would worry some.
More than 40 countries including Germany, Britain and New Zealand have asked the United Nations body to set aviation standards that will make single-pilot flights a safe reality.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has also been working with aircraft manufacturers to determine how solo flights will operate and prepare rules to monitor them. EASA says such services could begin in 2027.
The plan is not suitable for pilots. It’s a hard sell to passengers, too.
Tony Lucas, Airbus SE A330 captain for Qantas Airlines Ltd. and president of the Australian & International Pilots Association, is concerned that a lone pilot could be overwhelmed in an emergency before anyone else has time to reach the cockpit to help.
“People who go this route are not everyday jetliners,” says Lucas. “When things go bad, they get worse pretty quickly.”
That’s what happened on Air France Flight 447 en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009. When the plane was flying at 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean and the plane was flying. Chief was resting in the cabin, the two agreed. -pilots in the cockpit started getting faulty speed readings, possibly from frozen probes outside the plane.
By the time the captain reached 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 on board.
Lucas, a test and training captain, also worries about losing the opportunity to instruct junior pilots if crews increasingly work alone.
Change may come soon
The planned changes present many challenges. It is not yet clear what would happen if a pilot fell down or began to fly erratically. Automation, technology and remote support from the ground will somehow have to replace the expertise, safety and immediacy of a second pilot.

Aviation has been aiming for this point for decades. In the 1950s, the cockpits of commercial aircraft were more crowded, typically with a captain, first officer or copilot, flight engineer, navigator, and radio operator. Advances in technology gradually made the last three positions redundant.
Janet Northcote, EASA’s head of communications, wrote in an email: “We have the capacity to remove the last bit of excess manpower from the flight deck.
According to the EU’s request to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations’ aviation standards body, one condition for operating with a single pilot is to be at least as safe as having two.
Boeing Co.’s Southeast Asia president. “The psychological barriers are probably harder than the technological ones,” Alexander Feldman said at Bloomberg’s business summit in Bangkok last week. “Technology is for single pilots, it’s really where regulators and the public feel at ease.”

The first step would be to allow solo piloting while the aircraft is in flight, which is often a less busy time than take-off and landing. That would allow the other pilot to rest in the cabin, rather than stay in the cockpit to control the plane.
By alternating breaks in this way, a two-person crew can fly longer routes without the assistance — and expense — of a copilot.
Finally, flying could be fully automated with minimal pilot supervision in the cockpit. According to EASA, the system can detect if a pilot is incapacitated for any reason and then manually land the plane at a pre-selected airport. It said such flights were not likely to happen until after 2030.
Need assessment
The value of having two pilots up front was famously demonstrated on January 15, 2009, when a US Airways plane hit a flock of geese shortly after takeoff and lost power in both. engine. Captain Chesley Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles landed an Airbus A320 on the Hudson River together. No one died. The incident became known as the Miracle on the Hudson River.
To date, nothing has been proven safer than “a rested, qualified, well-trained second pilot on the flight deck,” says the International Association of Airline Pilots. with ICAO in an article for the meeting last month.
“Passengers on commercial airlines absolutely expect and deserve to have a passenger experience,” said Joe Leader, chief executive officer of Apex, a New York-based airline association focused on passenger experience. two pilots in the cockpit.
The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority said in an email that a pilot’s switch to active duty could affect areas such as crew training and medical requirements, as well as mental health. and job satisfaction.
The agency, one of the regulators that contributed to the European paper for the ICAO conference, said the impact of flying alone, even for a while, needed a “detailed assessment”. .
The International Coordinating Council of Aerospace Industry Associations, which represents aircraft manufacturers worldwide, is urging ICAO to put together a route for flights with a single pilot in flight. stage is not important.
Airbus said in an email that it was evaluating how smaller crews could maneuver its planes. Currently, the plane maker is working with airlines and regulators to see if two pilots can safely replace three-person crew on long-haul flights.
Airlines are considering single-pilot flights, including China Eastern Airlines Corp, which suffered a fatal crash in March. Last month, a Shanghai-based airline pilot co-authored a study evaluating how take-off and landing missions could be automated or completed with help from a ground station. .
EASA said it is aware of concerns about solo flying and that addressing them is part of the process.
“These concepts will not be implemented until the aviation community feels comfortable that operations will be at least as safe as they are today,” Northcote said.