British Pilots Warn Of Strike
Is it a labor tactic or
a genuine concern over the amount of time European flight crews
spend in the cockpit? If it's a true-blue safety issue, then
British Airline Pilots Association General Secretary Jim McAuslin
warns, "We will be writing to employers saying that airlines should
brace themselves for cancelled flights as pilots will not adhere to
the proposed limits if they feel they are at risk of fatigue and of
jeopardizing passenger lives."
When the EU's Council of Transport Ministers meets in Luxembourg
later this week, they'll consider extending the hours of flight
crews throughout Europe. British pilots like BALPA chief Mervyn
Granshaw warn, be ready for a storm of protests that could ground
flights worldwide.
"What the European Commission is proposing is frankly unsafe and
will put passenger lives at risk," said Granshaw.
In trying to create an EU standard for flight crew hours, the
ministers meeting in Luxembourg will consider the highly
controversial "Simpson Proposals." Named for British MEP Brian
Simpson, who chaired the transport meetings last year, the
proposals are the ire of commercial pilots in Europe. The transport
ministers took them off the table, reworked them, and are set to
consider them again when they meet Thursday and Friday.
But the BALPA has a plan. Granshaw and McAuslin want to present
the ministers with a study of 55 commercial aircraft accidents over
a ten-year period -- a study conducted by the FAA. The study shows
pilots working more than ten hours in a single stretch are twice as
likely to run into accidents as are pilots who've worked less than
ten hours. When the pilot in question has worked 13 hours, he's
six-times more prone to cause an accident that seriously damages
the aircraft or hurts someone on board.
The Simpson proposals would stretch a pilot's working day to 14
hours. It would also cut the amount of rest time between such long
shifts.
"The proposals originated in the European Parliament where we
had the sorry spectacle of politicians trying to decide what hours
should be flown and when," said McAuslin. "They came to a shoddy
compromise which is unsafe, unsound, and impractical. The fact is
that science has been shut out. The views of experts in the field
were neither sought nor accepted when offered. There is a desire to
have one European standard, and that is something that BALPA has
been demanding for years, but what we are offered is a half baked
set of proposals that will put passenger lives at risk. The public
needs to be told."
Granshaw was singing from the same hymnbook Monday. "Under the
European proposals it will be possible for an airline to tell two
pilots to fly from London to Sydney with a brief stopover in
Bangkok or Singapore instead of what we have now, a flight crew of
four," he said. "Experience tells us that this will be a
disaster."