Last month I had the opportunity to join pilots’ associations’ representatives from the Nordic region for a two-day symposium on casualization of labour. I came back home relieved and delighted by the determination of DALPA (Danish Airline Pilot Association), NF (Norsk Flygerforbund), Estonian ALPA, SPF (Svensk Pilotförening) and FPA (Finnish Pilot Association) and Icelandic Airline Pilots Association (FIA) to stand united against this growing threat to good employment practices in the region.

ECA has been very active in advocating for caution when it comes to casualization of pilots’ jobs. In addition to jeopardising job stability and working conditions, in aviation this type of contracts has also a safety aspect. Pilots employed under such precarious conditions would not always be able to take safety decisions if they fear that their decision might have consequences on the continuation or renewal of their contracts. In crisis-hit Europe, however, this employment model increasingly replaces regular contracts under the guise of a cost-cutting measure. This symposium presented a good opportunity for pilots from the region to discuss how to better defend the rights of pilots as employees and guarantee safety in the skies. For this they deserve to be applauded.

Further in this Cockpit News you can read about the decision of the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to harmonise the prohibited items list with ICAO standards. The announcement of this decision came by TSA Administrator John Pistole during the 21st IATA AVSEC World Conference in New York last month. ECA was a supporting organisation of the event and as such I gave a presentation on “Incidents in the Air”. We’d like to thank IATA for the great opportunity to exchange views and expertise with professional pilots.

by Nico Voorbach