Did someone say take a pilot out of the flight-deck or did I imagine that? Airbus and EASA are reviewing, in a serious way, a provision to allow crewing to be reduced to single pilot during certain cruise phases of flight. Sure why not? Relegating pilot importance is not new, it has been tested in many forms and will consistently rear its ugly head, but the truth is aviation does not exist without pilots. 

Aviation is built on relationships and the coming together of multiple professionals to achieve a safe outcome. It’s these relationships that form the cornerstone of our industry, without one another we can’t get the job done. One note on all of this, no other aviation professional has a purpose without pilots.

Pilots are responsible for everyone else’s existence in aviation. I’m sure some of you just sharply inhaled, faux mortified, triggered even, at such a dismissive and self centred statement. I am not at all concerned about your feelings. For clarity this is not intended to be dismissive, but a pilot sees the world through their sunglasses and those lenses definitely colours things. 

In 1903 the Wright brothers took flight, under power, at Kitty Hawk. A moment that changed our relationship with the air, and instilled in us a desire for more. 

‘Hey Orvil, do we need to put in place any plans for this madness today?’ Wilbur queried over breakfast. 

‘Not sure who we’d be telling about it to be honest” replied Orvil.’ 

‘You’re right, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t believe us anyway.’ 

So Orvil and Wilbur, eating there boiled potatoes, for breakfast, realise there’s absolutely no one to inform, tell or support them in this moment of exploration. Could they have known what was going to happen if they were successful? Was it even possible to envisage being responsible for the creation of the most effective means of business and pleasure travel for billions of people. That’s to say nothing of air superiority and the importance of air power in armed conflict.

So here we are, pilots to fly airplanes and people to support them in doing so. Most of you know that aviation is risky and so it needs pilots to reduce risk. We could chose to not fly at all and there would be zero risk, but we accept some level of risk and train people appropriately to mitigate it. Everything else is in service of this system.

There are very few fields that are solely reliant on one profession for the generation of so much employment. Given what we know about the importance of pilots it is incredible to suggest diluting the pilot pool, with semi-autonomous cockpits or reduced crew compliments through concepts such as Extended Minimum Crew Operations (eMCO). Someone needs to tell Airbus and EASA that the idea of removing pilots is laughable. Particularly stupid is the suggestion that pilots could work with either robots or some form of AI on the flight deck. The travelling public will never go for this because they are human and trust humans. You’d also have to retrofit and/or replace every aircraft in the world, which seems like a reach when there are issues with the training and retention of engineers and technicians within aviation.  

The idea of replacing one of the meat-bags on the flight-deck with a robot or automaton seems to lack understanding in pilot progression and continuous professional development. The suggestion is that the robot would always be accompanied by a Captain who would be “responsible” for the aircraft. There’s a video online (here) that shows a robot landing a 737 and it’s cool, genuinely novel. However, the robot arm looks an awful lot like the dog food can opener in Back to the Future and for my money would seem to lack the quick reactions required when the weather gets spicy. I know we got chatbots and AI in 2023 and it’s a leap, but it’s not going to be flying an airplane anytime in the next decade. 

When I think of occupying the flight-deck with a robot I often drift to how bad it could actually be. Pop culture is littered with tales of how quickly robots can turn on their masters, but in a lot of cases they often break down, make mistakes or cause problems. Their lack of humanity a consistent failing. If you’ve ever watched Star Wars you’ll know who C-3PO is. That robot is never not transmitting – constantly generating unnecessary noise. Sterile flight deck would be impossible, he’d be telling you the odds of a level bust occurring and his chatter would cause a missed call and level bust. You could always fly with someone fun like Bender from Futurama and you’d have a good time, but he’s an unreliable alcoholic. Not exactly what we would hope for in our pilots, or robots. Pop culture has helped us to conceive a world with robots and when they are not murdering us they’re breaking down. Can’t imagine the travelling public, with these reference points, is going to embrace the robot co-pilot. 

It would be silly not to mention the fact that the idea of a shared cockpit relies heavily on a Captain being present. The really interesting thing about this is that you can’t become a Captain without being a First Officer. How do you develop your decision making skills and resilience if you’ve never been on the flight-deck before? The concept is flawed before it even gets off the ground. Once again, nothing works without the pilots. 

Pilots are important to aviation and without them the system doesn’t really exist. Who would the air traffic controllers talk to? What would happen to all those crew meals? (potentially a good thing for food waste and world hunger) Who would bring your granny to Spain for the winter so her breathing is better? 

Lonely air traffic controllers, sick grannies and the ability to only see the rest of the world on the internet, or worse in printed photographs, rests on the continued training and delivery of pilots. Pilots are important so let’s just say thanks to all the pilots we know, including me, for the delight that is air travel and everything it gives us. 

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