Flying solo? Airlines push to ditch co-pilots, cut costs despite safety fears

The plan backed by over 40 countries including Germany, Britain and New Zealand doesn’t sit well with pilots. It’s a hard sell for passengers, too

Ultimately, flying could be fully automated with minimal oversight from a pilot in the cockpit – but such flights aren’t likely until well after 2030

Reading Time:4 minutes

A pilot adjusts the flight controls inside the cockpit of an aircraft in Vietnam. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 1:03pm, 21 Nov 2022Updated: 1:05pm, 21 Nov 2022

Airlines and regulators are pushing to have just one pilot in the cockpit of passenger jets instead of two. It would lower costs and ease pressure from crew shortages, but placing such responsibility on a single person at the controls is unsettling for some.

More than 40 countries including Germany, Britain and New Zealand have asked the United Nations body that sets aviation standards to help make single-pilot flights a safe reality. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has also been working with planemakers to determine how solo flights would operate and preparing rules to oversee them. EASA said such services could start in 2027.

The plan doesn’t sit well with pilots. It’s a hard sell for passengers, too.

A captain, pilot and technician are seen in a plane’s cockpit in 2003. Advances in technology have gradually made cockpits less crowded. Photo: AFP

Tony Lucas, an Airbus A330 captain for Qantas Airways Ltd. and president of the Australian & International Pilots Association, is concerned that a lone pilot might be overwhelmed by an emergency before anyone else has time to reach the cockpit to help.

“The people going down this route aren’t the people who fly jets every day,” Lucas said. “When things go awry, they go awry fairly quickly.”

That’s what happened on board Air France Flight 447 on its way to Paris from Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 2009. With the plane cruising at 35,000 feet (10,670 metres) over the Atlantic Ocean and the captain resting in the cabin, the two co-pilots in the cockpit started receiving faulty speed readings, likely from frozen detector tubes outside the aircraft.

By the time the captain got to the cockpit 90 seconds later, the plane was in an aerodynamic stall from which it never recovered. Less than three minutes later, it hit the water, killing all 228 people on board.