Will there soon be just one pilot in the plane instead of two?

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Firas BAGHDADI

06.01.2023

Will there soon be just one pilot in the plane instead of two?

Will a single-pilot airliner soon be a reality? This is a legitimate question, and far from science fiction, since "many airlines and regulators are pushing for a single pilot in the cockpit of airliners instead of two", reported the US news agency Bloomberg on 20 November 2022. According to Bloomberg, these new rules, if implemented, would "reduce costs" and "solve staffing problems". A necessary development according to the American media, which points out that the airline sector has been hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis.

More than 40 countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, recently asked the United Nations body responsible for setting aviation standards to consider introducing single-pilot flights. Meanwhile, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is also working with aircraft manufacturers to find out whether single-pilot flights are feasible and to prepare rules to oversee them. "EASA has said that these services could begin in 2027," reports online media Korii.

Currently, three to four pilots are needed in the aircraft for long-haul flights. They alternate between flying time and breaks, so that a two-person team is always present in the cockpit.

"There's always a second pilot

The current idea is to reduce the number of pilots from three to two," explains Iza Bazin, an independent aviation consultant. Let's be clear, there won't be just one pilot at the controls of the aircraft from take-off to landing... The plan is for a second pilot to be on board, but resting on the cockpit seat, during the aircraft's cruising phases.

The specialist also points out that "for the moment, this project only concerns long-haul freight aircraft and not passenger aircraft". Could this desire to reduce staff numbers and costs ultimately be to the detriment of passenger safety, should the project be extended to commercial flights? "No, it won't. With two pilots, the safety conditions are met," says Iza Bazin. I think we need to do more psychological work and educate passengers.

This view is not shared by some flight personnel representatives. "The people who want to move in this direction clearly don't fly airliners every day. When things go wrong, they go wrong very quickly", says Tony Lucas, airline pilot and President of the Australian Pilots Association, quoted by Bloomberg.

The trend towards a smaller crew in the cockpit is not new, however, and has regularly come to the fore in recent years. In June 2021, Marc Rochet, CEO of Air Caraïbes and Chairman of French Bee, two long-haul airlines, announced that he was studying this possibility.

"In short- and medium-haul, the decision has already been taken. We're well aware of the costs behind all this, the advances in the digital world, we know that we can't stop this kind of development," he said, before confirming that work had already begun on short-haul flights. There's someone else in the world who'll be doing it, and we'll have to keep up, so we might as well be ahead of the game.

"Not realistic and above all dangerous

At the time, these statements provoked a major outcry from the Syndicat national des pilotes de lignes en France (SNPL). The latter considered that this idea was "unrealistic and above all dangerous".

Technologies have certainly made enormous strides, and it is partly thanks to these that flight safety is improving year on year, but the high level of safety achieved by the air transport industry rests above all on one fundamental pillar: the synergy and mutual supervision between two crew members," stated the body in 2021 in a press release. This high level of safety is inextricably linked to the permanent presence in the cockpit of two trained and rested pilots who are alert and able to take control at any time.