The pilots absolutely want to stay in pairs in the cockpit! World Pilots Day, celebrated every April 26 since its establishment in 2014, has been an opportunity for international mobilization of sailors. There were several dozen captains and co-pilots, in front of terminal 2E at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, to demonstrate in full uniform, against “the project led by Airbus and Dassault which would like there to be only one pilot at the controls during the cruise phase of a flight”, explains Karine Gély, president of the National Union of Airline Pilots (SNPL France Alpa). The same day, all over the world, pilot unions called on their members to mobilize to maintain the principle of two-person piloting.
It is the device called EMCO (Extended Minimum Crew Operations), which combines cutting-edge software and artificial intelligence to pilot an aircraft with a crew limited to a single person, which set fire to the powders. “There is urgency because Airbus is far ahead on this subject”, fears Thierry Oriol, spokesperson for the SNPL. For its part, Airbus indicates that this technological advance is only intended “to improve the management of pilots’ rest times” during long-haul flights.
In practice, Airbus’ objective would be to allow pilots who make journeys of several hours, such as Paris – Pointe-à-Pitre, to be able to take turns to rest. Takeoff “and the landing would be done with two pilots, then, during the flight, one of the two will rest while the other remains in the cockpit”explains Véronique Damon, captain on Airbus A220 and administrator of Air France.
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The desire to make planes more and more autonomous is not new. For several years, “Airbus is pushing technologies to make the plane capable of managing itself”, we indicate from the world number one in aeronautics. In 2020, the Franco-European aircraft manufacturer announced that it had successfully landed an A350-1000 long-haul widebody aircraft autonomously.
For trade unionists, we must act without delay. At the start, Karine Gély said: “Airbus expected its EMCO device to be certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in 2026.” The green light from the regulatory authority has been postponed until 2027, indicates the boss of the SNPL.
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