Air Line Pilot Magazine August 2024

Your Advocacy Keeps Us Safe and Secure

When an engine fails or instruments go blank in the middle of the night over a cold, dark North Atlantic, it’s crucial that at least two experienced pilots are on the flight deck, working together to resolve the issue. During an emergency, workloads can be immense. First and foremost, pilots must continue to fly the airplane, properly evaluate the situation, run the appropriate checklists, and communicate to air traffic control, the company, fellow crewmembers, and passengers. All this is performed as a team. Imagine attempting to manage a situation like this alone.

We know that things can and do go wrong at any time in flight. No matter what happens, as pilots we’re responsible for the safety of our flights. Countless systems can malfunction or fail at any time—and they do on about 20 percent of flights—but it’s always up to us to get the aircraft back to the ground safely. We have an incredible record of saving the day, and the last 15 years have been the safest period in aviation history.

Despite the fact that highly skilled pilots are the most important safety feature on every flight, manufacturers like Airbus are working to implement single-pilot operations on airline flights. One pilot to fly the airplane, navigate, communicate, troubleshoot, monitor aircraft systems, ensure the flight ends safely, and more. As a B-767 captain with almost 30 years of experience as an airline pilot, the idea of regularly operating an airliner alone is an unacceptable gamble with safety. And I bet it’s unacceptable to everyone who’s reading this with similar experience on the flight deck.

Recognizing that single-pilot and reduced-crew operations are the greatest threat to safety that our industry faces, ALPA released the white paper “A Gamble with Safety: Reduced-Crew Operations” that highlights the benefits of having at least two well-trained pilots on the flight deck at all times and the dangers of removing pilots from the flight deck (see page 36). The facts are clear: a team of at least two pilots on the flight deck is always safer.

As part of our strong engagement with lawmakers, we took that message to Capitol Hill during our 11th annual Legislative Summit (see page 19). We’re working with lawmakers and regulators—who just defended safety and security in the recent FAA reauthorization bill (see page 22)—to protect the flying and shipping public again by blocking attempts to implement single-pilot operations at any point in flight.

Due to our tireless advocacy, ALPA has consistently succeeded in raising the bar on safety and security, helping to contribute to the safest period in aviation history through our work to draw attention to risks like the public-charter loophole (see page 28), the lack of secondary flight deck barriers, and smoke and fume events.

Our advocacy not only makes our profession safer, it also makes it stronger by protecting our rights to insist managements listen to our united voices. In Canada, we won stronger protections for our right to strike with the passage of C-58 earlier this year (see page 25).

Our successes in the U.S. and Canada wouldn’t be possible without our strong, unified voice and pilot engagement. We’re growing our District Advocate program to increase lines of communication between lawmakers and the pilots they represent (see page 32). We’re also expanding our advocacy footprint to put more resources into individual states to protect flight crew rights in state worker-related policy making (see page 30).

Our commitment to safety and making our profession stronger will never waver, and we’ll continue to build on the successes we’ve achieved in the past year and a half. When I took office, I committed to securing stronger contracts by bringing pilot groups together to build relationships—

like we did at the recent Industry Bargaining Roundtable (see page 40)—and we’ve done just that. When we come together, share ideas, and expand on each other’s success, we all win.

To each ALPA member who’s played a role in our success in advocating for our profession with lawmakers or negotiating stronger contracts with managements, thank you. We’ve made great strides as a union, and we’re building a foundation for even greater wins in the future. Together, we’ll stop reduced-crew operations and the gamble with safety, work with lawmakers to defend against attacks on safety and security and our rights as union members, and achieve even stronger contracts.