Press Release of the European Cockpit Association, Brussels, 11 May 2015

The technology and abilities of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) are changing fast and the commercial demand to integrate the systems in the airspace is enormous. The commercial advantages and possibilities of RPAS seem almost unlimited. And because of decreasing costs - the recreational user will be a new actor in the airspace. But this new technology poses risks that must be on the radar screen of manufacturers, users and regulators. In a new position paper, ECA outlines a number of prerequisites for the safe integration of light RPAS, often referred to as ‘toys’, into Europe’s low level airspace.

“A broad misconception is that small drones are harmless ‘toys’ flying at low level. However, RPAS, even light ones below 1 kg, can cause significant or even catastrophic damage to e.g. helicopters in case of a collision as helicopters have a number of vulnerable, critical components, such as the tail rotor or main rotor head,” says ECA President Dirk Polloczek. “Even below 500 feet there is a lot of air traffic, such as air ambulances, police or fire fighting. The same applies to the airspace next to airports, with a frequent incoming and outgoing traffic. Contrary to scheduled airline flights, most of the low level air traffic (e.g. police or air ambulances) are not predictable in time and place, but all are subjected to strict air operations rules. So should RPAS be.”

At this moment recommendations for worldwide requirements for RPAS are developed for example by the Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems (JARUS). In Europe, the National Civil Aviation Authorities are currently responsible for RPAS operations with a weight of 150 kg or less, which leads to diverging rules from state to state. With the ‘Riga Declaration’, signed by the European Commission and various stakeholders, and the European Aviation Safety Agency’s proposed ‘Concept of Operations’ Europe has taken a decisive step to open its skies for RPAS.

This is why ECA has outlined a set of key regulatory standards to ensure safety in lower level airspace when RPAS are integrated with other traffic. Some of these are:

Introduction of approved automatic detection and avoidance equipment on RPAS;
Placing responsibility to see and avoid manned aircraft on the pilot of the RPAS;
Training and licensing of RPAS-pilots in a way that knowledge and skills – but also awareness and airmanship – are on a comparable level as manned aircraft pilots;
Compulsory registration for all RPAS;
Informing the public about the dangers of recreational RPAS (DOs and DON’Ts).

“We face an immense challenge to safely integrate RPAS,” says Philip von Schöppenthau, ECA Secretary General. “The Riga Declaration spells out important principles. But we need to be meticulous in our assessment and way forward when it comes to the details. We simply cannot afford to fail. This would be disastrous both for the RPAS industry and for aviation safety. As such we hope that Europe’s future drone rules will be a leading example worldwide when it comes to safety and security.”

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Pay-to-fly schemes for young pilots must stop, Brussels, 28 April 2015

When young pilots have to pay an airline for flying its aircraft and passengers, something is seriously wrong. This is why the European Cockpit Association strongly denounces this unacceptable – but rapidly growing – phenomenon, practised by airlines and intermediary agencies in Europe, and calls upon EU decision-makers to ban such “Pay-to-fly” (P2F) schemes. These schemes – also called “self-sponsored line training” – require newly trained pilots to buy a package of flight hours to gain flight experience. Usually, these flight hours are part of the ‘type rating’ – a standard in-house training course on a specific type of aircraft – which is part of every pilot’s professional career.

“Airlines are constantly reinventing models to get cheaper labour, like hiring self-employed or fake self-employed pilots, pilots on temporary work agency contracts, or on zero-hours contracts,” says ECA President Dirk Polloczek. “But P2F takes such unacceptable practices to a wholly different level: the employment of young pilots is no longer an investment by the airline in its staff but a simple revenue generator. It is a blunt abuse and exploitation of young, low-hours pilots who are desperate to find a job.”

“This is why young pilots have said “enough is enough” and started a “Stop P2F” petition,” continues Dirk Polloczek. “Europe’s entire pilot community stands firmly behind them, and urges European decision-makers and the European Aviation Safety Agency EASA to take decisive and effective steps to ban P2F schemes and to stop this abuse.”

“P2F practices discourage young motivated men and women to join the profession, or – once they did their initial pilot training – pushes them into financial exploitation, by making them pay 30-50.000 euro for a P2F contract, on top of the already high costs of their initial training,” says Philip von Schöppenthau, ECA Secretary General. “In addition, P2F provides a perverse incentive for a pilot to fly at any cost. Few will admit it, but when you have paid up to 50.000 euro to fly this plane, you will think twice before deciding not to fly today because you feel sick or fatigued. Like any other pilot, young pilots must focus on the task and prioritise safety, rather than having to worry about the financial and career consequences of taking safety-related decisions.”

With only few jobs on offer, pilots who do not have much flying experience (usually under 1500 h) are caught up in a ‘catch 22’ situation: insufficient flying hours to get a job means they have no chance of getting one; and without a job there is no way to build up the required experience to be hired. P2F schemes exploit and exacerbate this situation by making pilots actually pay the airline to work and fly for it on regular revenue-earning flights. Concretely this means in addition to the 70.000-130.000 euro debt in the bank at the start of their career, they usually have no prospect whatsoever that the company will hire them after their P2F contract ends.

In a recent report on ‘Atypical forms of employment in aviation’, carried out by the Ghent University (Belgium), the researchers identify P2F schemes as one of the most extreme and exploitative forms of pilot employment, and recommend that they are banned. This comes in addition to a new trend towards (bogus) self-employment of pilots, temporary agency work and zero-hours contracts where pilots are paid by the hour flown.

2-page summary of the Ghent report

JOIN the STOP P2F Campaign and sign the petition

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Press Release of the IFALPA, Madrid, 13 April 2015

Captain Martin Chalk of the United Kingdom was elected as IFALPA’s 18th President during the final Plenary Session of the Federation’s 70th Conference. He succeeds Captain Don Wykoff of the United States.

Capt. Chalk, who started his flying career with the Royal Air Force, currently flies A380s for Brit- ish Airways. He previously served as IFALPA’s Deputy President, a role he assumed in 2014, and was also President of the European Cockpit Association from 2005 until 2011.

Commenting on his election Capt. Chalk promised the delegates “I will work hard to repay your faith”, and called upon on all pilots worldwide: “Unity – we must live and breathe it.”
Meanwhile, Captain Chris Lynch of the United States was elected as the Federation’s Deputy Presi- dent succeeding Capt. Chalk.

Captain Mike Pinho from the United States follows Capt. Lynch as IFALPA’s new Executive Vice President (EVP) North America, while Captain Osvaldo Neto of Brazil took over as EVP Carib- bean and South America from Captain German Diaz Barriga of Mexico.

Canadian Captain Rod Lypchuk was re-elected to the IFALPA Executive Board as Executive Vice President Administration, Membership & Finance, as was Captain Ben Mansumitchai of Thailand as Executive Vice President Asia Pacific.

Press Release of the European Cockpit Association, Madrid/Brussels, 11 April 2015

The Single European Sky (SES) – as well as its US counterpart NextGen – is a vital project for modernising Air Traffic Management. It will profoundly change the way flight operations are performed and will provide a much more strategic role for pilots. “The future of flying in a Single European Sky” publication, issued today by the European Cockpit Association, provides a strategic input into the debate on how to successfully modernise Europe’s Air Traffic Management (ATM).

“We are firm believers that the future of flying in Europe can only happen in a single, safe and sustainable European Sky,” says ECA President Dirk Polloczek. “Even if we do not hold the key to ‘unlocking’ the political deadlock on the Single European Sky, we do have the knowledge, front-line expertise and tools to shape this major ATM transformation jointly with other stakeholders. And we are committed to do so.”

With this publication, Europe’s pilot community reiterates that maintaining and increasing safety – in what will be a completely new operational environment – is not only crucial but an absolute precondition when moving forward with the SES initiative. Any new technologies or procedures must guarantee safe operations, even under the most demanding scenarios. Involving pilots in ‘reality checks’ of proposed solutions will therefore continue to be crucial. With the changing role for pilots in sight, new skills will have to be developed and trained. This in turn also illustrates how important it is for different systems and technologies to be compatible. Interoperability between e.g. NextGen in USA and the European system is an absolute necessity.

This new ECA publication was released at the 70th Annual Conference of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) in Madrid, where the major ATM modernization projects in Europe and the US were discussed by the global pilot community and ATM experts.

“Today’s IFALPA Conference offered a great platform to discuss the challenges stemming from the latest NextGen and SES developments,” says ECA Technical Board Director Álvaro Gammicchia. “For us as pilots, these projects are much more than just technical developments. These are a true revamp for our profession. New skills, new threats, new challenges and new opportunities are emerging for us, as the way we will be flying our airplanes in future will be completely different and more strategic than it is today. This is why our publication offers you a unique ‘sneak peek’ into the future of flying, from a crew perspective.”

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