Aviation Security, Pilot Training, And Fatigue Top List
The Air Line Pilots Association,
Int’l (ALPA) released its aviation safety and security
priorities for 2010 on Thursday. Topping the list are shifting to
trust-based aviation security, improving qualifications and
training for pilots, and combating pilot fatigue.
“ALPA pilots’ dedication and professionalism have
helped to create the foundation for an extraordinarily safe and
secure mode of transportation,” said Capt. John Prater,
ALPA’s president. “Even as our profession has been
devastated by drastic cuts in salary, lost or frozen pensions, and
intensifying pressure to work longer hours, ALPA members have
remained resolute in holding paramount the safety of our
passengers, crews, and cargo. Challenges remain, however, as we
pursue ever higher safety and security standards.”
Other priority issues include properly regulating lithium
battery shipments, leveraging safety reporting programs such as the
Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) and the Flight Operations
Quality Assurance program (FOQA), modernizing the North American
airspace system, installing secondary cockpit barriers, securing
all-cargo flight operations, and safely integrating unmanned
aircraft systems in the national airspace.
“ALPA remains committed to, and indeed heavily involved
in, efforts to safely improve the capacity and efficiency of the
National Airspace System,” said Capt. Rory Kay, ALPA’s
Executive Air Safety Chairman. “We are also dedicated to
ensuring that valuable voluntary safety reporting systems such as
the ASAP and FOQA programs continue to flourish and that efforts to
integrate unmanned aerial systems into our skies are made without
impacting the safety of the NAS.”
ALPA also called for a shift to a trust-based aviation security
system that focuses on intent, rather than on objects. The union
calls for a system that establishes the trustworthiness of each
passenger through a combination of publicly available information,
human interaction, and behavior-pattern recognition. ALPA framed
its proposal in a recently released white paper titled Meeting
Today’s Aviation Security Needs: A Call to Action for a Trust
Based Security System.
“Our layered aviation security system is in dire need of
major reform,” said Capt. Robb Powers, ALPA’s National
Security Committee Chairman. “Our proposal focuses on
identifying people who pose no threat to aviation and quickly
moving them through a screening process that is commensurate with
the level of trust they have earned. This approach to aviation
security is more sophisticated, more efficient, and significantly
more effective than the current methodology.”
The Association also called for rapid modernization of
flight-time, duty-time, and rest regulations in the United States
and Canada for airline pilots so that the rules are based on
science and apply equally to all operations, including domestic,
international, and supplemental flying. ALPA pilots participated in
the FAA’s Aviation Rulemaking Committee, which completed its
work in September 2009.
“We had hoped that the new proposed regulation would be
out at the end of 2009. It is important for the remainder of the
administrative steps for rulemaking to be completed, but that needs
to happen in a timely manner so that we have a final rule in place
by the end of 2010,” said Capt. Don Wykoff, ALPA’s
Flight Time/Duty Time Committee Chairman. “The members of the
Aviation Rulemaking Committee completed their work in a compressed
time line, and it’s our expectation that the regulators would
do the same.”
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