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Airline pilots are professionally bound to transport passengers safely to their destinations. They do not take any political decisions but they (sometimes) do carry the consequences of such decisions. Such is the case of the two Turkish pilots who have sadly and against their will become victim of the Syrian conflict and the politics related to it. Murat Akpınar and Murat Ağca, two Turkish Airlines pilots, have been kidnapped by gunmen during their layover in Beirut on 9 August. Today, a month later, they are still being kept hostage by a terrorist group requesting the release of 9 Lebanese nationals held hostage in Syria.

On behalf of all European pilots I would like to express our deepest concern for the kidnapped pilots. Our thoughts are with Murat Akpınar and Murat Ağca, their families, loved ones and their colleagues. We hope they will return home safe and secure! We stand fully behind our Turkish Member Association in the struggle to get our colleagues out of this situation that has nothing to do with commercial airline pilots.

At ECA we relentlessly continue our efforts in a different battle – the ‘fight’ for safe Flight Time Limitations. Just before the summer break of the European Parliament (EP), the European Commission (EC) sent the unsafe FTL proposal to the EP and started the scrutiny period. By sending this proposal to the EP when most Parliamentarians were already on holidays, the Commission significantly reduced the possibility for Parliamentarians to carefully study the proposal. The EP can only say “yes” or “no” to this proposal and now it seems this will have to be a hasty decision.

On 30 September, the EP Transport Committee will have to accept or reject the proposal. ECA has repeatedly highlighted the critical points of the proposal and has suggested improvements to the text, which have sadly been completely disregarded. Limiting the Parliament’s opportunity to study the proposal carefully only adds to the long lists of flaws. We will keep you updated with all the latest developments on www.dead-tired.eu.

In the meantime, this issue of Cockpit News brings to your attention two very important issues in European aviation: bogus self-employment and the right to strike!
 

by Nico Voorbach