Three Arguments For And Against Eliminating Airline
Co-Pilots
Stephen Rice
I teach and conduct
research in Aviation Human Factors at ERAU.
Decades ago, there was a flight engineer present in the cockpit
of commercial airplanes whose job was to monitor aircraft systems and diagnose
problems. With the advent of integrated circuits and advances in computing power
during the early 1980s, this job was eventually eliminated. Today, we almost
universally see two pilots in the cockpit. However, there is serious talk of
reducing that number to one. Airbus SE and Thales SA have stated that this could
become reality as soon as 2023.
A heated debate is under way over the
issue. Airlines would like to balance safety with profits. The FAA is tasked
with keeping the flying public safe through regulation, oversight and
inspection. Pilots want to ensure safety and reasonable working conditions. And
of course, the public ultimately drives this discussion with our pocketbooks.
There are many different points of view, but for the sake of brevity, here are
the three most common arguments that I keep hearing.
Three
Arguments in Favor
1) It will ease the pilot shortage
It
is no secret that the aviation industry faces a worldwide shortage of qualified
pilots. The number of licensed pilots has decreased by about 30% over the past
three decades. Numerous estimates cite the need to hire thousands of new pilots.
Some air carriers reduce, or cancel, flight schedules as a result of these pilot
shortages. In an effort to pilot their fleets, airlines have increased wages and
signing bonuses, among other things. In their eyes, one of the easiest ways to
address this problem of supply is to reduce demand. By eliminating the co-pilot
from the cockpit, they can remove much of the problem.
2) It would save
the airlines lots of money
One obvious benefit of reducing the pilot pool
is that you now also reduce the recurring salaries by the same amount. Airlines
argue that they would save a lot of money by removing half of the pilots, as
these are usually among their highest paid employees. It will also help the
airlines cut costs because they will no longer have to increase wages and
signing bonuses since there will no longer be a pilot shortage. They say this
will help to reduce ticket prices and that consumers will also
benefit.
3) It gives aircraft manufacturers more options
If an
aircraft manufacturer only has to accommodate one pilot in the cockpit, then
they can start being more creative with their designs. Furthermore, they can
start allowing the automation to do more, as they did when the flight engineer
was removed many decades ago. Programmers generally argue that automation is
superior to human pilots. Flights are smoother and more fuel-efficient, as the
automation is able to make a million decisions per second, while a human is
simply human. In fact, some airlines will not allow their pilots to fly manually
during certain periods of flight. A survey of Airbus and Boeing pilots found
that they manually fly about 3-6 minutes per flight; the rest of the time is in
autopilot mode. Presumably, the amount of autopiloted flight would increase with
the elimination of the co-pilot.
Three Arguments
Against
1) Automation is not perfect
As we have seen from
the Boeing 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, disasters can occur from
human-automation interaction in the cockpit. There is a laundry-list of
accidents at least partially caused by breakdowns in the human-automation team.
Some, like Air France flight 447 from Brazil to Paris, resulted in total loss of
life on board. Even highly reliable automation can create problems by eroding
pilots' manual flying skills and breeding complacency and lack of situational
awareness. When automation fails, the pilot is often left struggling to figure
out what went wrong.
2) There will be a loss of human
redundancy
From the time they enter the cockpit, the captain and first
officer work as a team. They coordinate the prepping of the aircraft, go through
the checklists together, and decide as a team when they are ready for flight.
This procedure has huge benefits. First, it encourages accountability. Having
someone present to verify that you have done your job increases compliance.
Second, having a second pair of eyes helps to detect problems or issues as they
arise. One pilot alone cannot see two things at once; they cannot both scan the
outside while monitoring displays. Third, it offers huge benefits during
emergencies and decision-making processes. A co-pilot is good for helping to
maintain calm and professionalism. A co-pilot helps by going through the
emergency checklist while the captain aviates. A co-pilot is good for bouncing
ideas off when things get messy. One must wonder how difficult it would have
been for Captain Sullenberger to land that airplane in the Hudson River without
Jeff Skiles.
3) The flight is more likely to wind up completely
pilotless
Removing the co-pilot will mean that if the pilot becomes
incapacitated, then you will be on an airplane with no one in control. Just like
everyone else on board, pilots often fall asleep in airplanes, even when they
are in the cockpit. A survey of pilots showed that more than half of them have
slept while flying. The fatigue problem has gotten so bad that some airlines
allow pilots to take naps in the cockpit. Second, if a pilot has a heart attack
or other potentially fatal event, there will be no one there to notice,
especially on a long-haul flight. Third, hypoxia (a loss of oxygen) affects
people differently. One pilot might start experiencing symptoms before another
one does, and the second pilot would notice this and remediate the situation. A
pilot by herself could just pass out, leaving the aircraft pilotless. The rest
of the flight crew and passengers would be completely
clueless.
Conclusions
Clearly this is a hot
button issue, and both sides take their arguments very seriously. A thorough
discussion must occur before policies are made that could negatively affect
aviation safety. Everyone deserves a seat at the table during this discussion,
including you. What are your thoughts on reducing the number of pilots in the
cockpit during commercial flights?
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