Germanwings and Loss of Licence insurance

It is surprising to read that larger carriers does not have LoL insurance for their pilots. In Norway we take LoL coverage for granted. Perhaps the Norwegian pilots will have to cover such an insurance by themselves.

Pilots need adequate loss of licence insurance: Lufthansa CEO

Pilots need to be provided with adequate loss of licence insurance that will allow them to remain financially secure if they are mentally unfit to fly, Lufthansa Group chief executive Carsten Spohr has said in the wake of the tragic Germanwings A320 crash in March.

Germanwings is the budget arm of Lufthansa, and French prosecutors have accused Germanwings first officer Andreas Lubitz of deliberately crashing the aircraft into the French Alps, killing all 150 passengers and crew members on board. Mr Lubitz had a history of mental health issues before the crash.

Unlike in most other jobs, pilots that report medical issues such as depression can be declared unfit to fly and risk losing their income source. Some loss of licence insurance policies cover mental health issues but others, like the one offered by Qantas Airways, make payouts - which can reach nearly $1 million depending on the pilot's age - discretionary in such cases.

Mr Spohr, himself a former A320 pilot, told a forum at the International Air Transport Association annual meeting in Miami that the potential to lose a licence made it tricky for pilots to report mental health issues, so ensuring insurance was adequate was "the highest measure we can have."

"All airlines should work on that," he said, without divulging details of the policies available to Lufthansa and Germanwings pilots.

Etihad Airways chief executive James Hogan agreed the potential of losing income was a serious concern that could lead pilots to fail to report health problems.

"One of the biggest challenges for pilots is loss of licence insurance and what do they do next," he said.

Alaska Airlines chief executive Brad Tilden said an industry-wide solution was needed to deal with the issue of future careers for pilots grounded due to health issues.

"I think the industry needs to work together," he said. "It is a problem all of us in the industry share."

Mr Spohr said the Germanwings crash had raised very difficult issues for his airline group and for the industry as a whole.

"Maybe there is no 100 per cent safety in aviation no matter how hard we work on it," he said. "Maybe it is something in the industry we have to live with."

In the Germanwings case, the captain was locked out of the cockpit by Mr Lubitz and could not reenter because the door was too secure as a result of post-September 11th security measures.

"It makes us realise we always thought of the threat coming from outside the cabin not inside the cabin," said Claudia Sender, the chief executive of Brazilian carrier TAM. "Part of the systems to protect the aircraft worked the other way around in this case. How you create redundancies like always making sure there is a second crew member in the cabin."

Qantas and Virgin Australia both put in place a policy of having two people on the flight deck at all times after the Germanwings crash.

Mr Spohr said when discussing the Germanwings crash, it was important that the public recognised this was not a simple issue of pilot depression.

"Depression is a very common disease and depression doesn't cause people to do what our pilot did," he said. "There is more than a depressive problem here when someone acts that way. We shouldn't put all people who have depression in this basket as this individual. That is very important. Depression is a common disease and there is a way to heal it."

The reporter travelled to Miami as a guest of IATA and Qantas.