Europe's Airlines greet "balanced" pilot flight-time rulemaking proposals

The publication of a Notice of Proposed Amendment will lead to a further round of consultation in which the various stakeholders will once again be asked to comment. 
 
Developing a European FTL scheme is complicated; establishing a European standard requires a decision on whether to adopt a more restrictive provision from one national scheme as future European standard, or a less restrictive provision from another; by their nature, FTL schemes are multi-dimensional. Furthermore, aligning different national schemes all of which demonstrably safe into a harmonised framework has  introduced a social dimension into what should be a purely safety-related debate.
 
In the past, the pilot unions sought to cherry-pick the elements from the various models which are most beneficial to their members, branding any other approach as unsafe with little or no regard to the fact that the proposals are all based on national schemes with a demonstrable established safety record.
 
Said AEA Secretary General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus: By publicly implying that some elements of these proposals are unsafe, pilot unions are abusing their role, as well as the esteem that the general public has for airline pilots. It is outrageous that passenger anxieties should be invoked by manipulating facts. To put it bluntly, I sometimes have the impression that the main concern of the pilot union is getting more pilots to fly aircraft so that the unions have more members.

It is standard practice in the industry for pilot unions in individual airlines to negotiate their own industrial agreements with their employers, which under certain circumstances can give them more favourable terms than the statutory limits.  Whether or not to go further than the legally binding limits is up to the collective negotiating process of the airline and its unions, said the AEA Secretary General.  The European Safety Agencys remit is determining the safety levels, and the Agency has delivered a recommendation based on safe practice. We commend the Agency that it resisted the pressure from the union to become a surrogate negotiator for employment terms and conditions. We now want to continue providing comments on the proposal. From the airlines side there remain a number of unresolved issues which need to be addressed.