Pilot associations urge Airbus to resist steps towards reduced-crew operations

Cockpit crew representatives have asked Airbus’s leadership to reconsider its exploration of single-pilot operations, citing the recent IT-related air transport disruption as illustrating the risks of over-reliance on technology. Three pilot associations – the US ALPA International, Europe’s ECA, and international federation IFALPA – have written to Airbus chief Guillaume Faury, highlighting the mid-July “technology meltdown” which resulted from a failed software roll-out by US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. “Fortunately, the safety and security of aircraft operations were not impacted,” the 5 August letter states. “But the lesson here is the certain fallibility of technology and the necessity to consider technology as an assist to human professionals and monitored airline operations rather than replacement.” The potential for reducing the number of pilots in the cockpit is the subject of research into initial concepts, among them extended minimum-crew operations, known as ‘eMCO’. Under eMCO the flight duration is prolonged by allowing one pilot in a two-person crew to rest, leaving the other pilot in the cockpit during low-activity cruise.<br/>