Ryanair's CEO Suggests Eliminating Co-Pilots 553
Posted
by
timothy
from the outsource-to-ground-control dept.
from the outsource-to-ground-control dept.
postbigbang writes "Ryanair's miser-in-chief Michael O'Leary now suggests eliminating co-pilots as a way to save money. Will airliners be powered by drones, or is it actually viable to have just a single pilot on passenger planes?"
You don't want the best, you want cheap. (Score:5, Informative)
Ryanair has been coming up with more revolutionary ways to save money:
Let stewardesses land planes:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7981643/Ryanair-boss-says-air-stewardesses-should-be-allowed-to-land-planes-in-an-emergency.html [telegraph.co.uk]
Let passengers stand:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/5753477/Ryanair-to-make-passengers-stand.html [telegraph.co.uk]
Seriously (Score:4, Informative)
I'm all for leaning on technology, but this just seems like profiteering
Just in case you weren't paying attention, there has been a big move in the US to increase regulations on commuter carriers who have driven down pilot pay and driven up pilot hours in order to increase profits. A lack of pilot training and an over reliance of the autopilot was seen as a direct cause of the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-07-30-aviation-safety_N.htm [usatoday.com]
IMHO, this makes ryanair's request unreasonable
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Yes it can. An autopilot/autothrottle/autoland system can fly an ILS approach, flare and touchdown. It's called CAT III ILS and isn't new technology. It has been around for a few decades. Both JFK and Heathrow have CAT III ILS approaches.
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it is ridiculous.
In the cockpit you have two pilots for a reason. One is PF (Pilot Flying). One is PNF (Pilot Not Flying). The PF is responsible for actually flying the plane. The PNF is responsible for all the checks and offloading to ensure the pilot can take care of the plane. He reads the checklists, handles communication and everything else. And even with this set of checks one of the most common causes of accidents is "Pilot Error". Removing the checking function of the PNF in that situation is beyond insane. It would take us back 30 years in aircraft security and completely ignores the whole CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) concept. You should think of removing the CNF as making a law that all drivers on the road must speak in their mobile phone and fiddle with the radio while driving.
Also, better technology has not made airplanes easier to fly. It has made them safer and more powerful, but not easier. It's like claiming that a modern nuclear powerplant doesn't need any engineers because it's all automatic... Planes are large and very complex machines. More technology means more failure modes.
Re:Pilots on Food Stamps (Score:5, Informative)
Frontline: Flying Cheap: "A hard look at the risks that may go with cheap flying."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flyingcheap/ [pbs.org]
When you start off flying commercial, almost every starts at a regional airline. You may be buying a United or Continental ticket, but it's a seperate airline that codeshares with the big boys. Those co-pilots on those aircraft are making between $18K-28K/year, are only paid from when the cabin door closes until it opens at the destination, and have their schedules dicked with by the airline's scheduling/routing department so that, while technically compliant with labor laws, they're extremely exhausting and some even nap in the cabin. Keep this in mind the next time you shop for your airline ticket based on price.
Re:Huh? (Score:1, Informative)
These days?
Pilots have always had terrible salaries. The companies bank on pilot's love of flying to override their desire for pay. Pilots have always had a rough time of it. The only thing that has changed is that they used to be more respected and looked up to (I don't know if that was ever deserved though).
Growing up I wanted to be a pilot because my dad was one for a short while. When I got older he explained the reality and I looked into myself and found out that it's actually a really boring job with shit pay.
If you really want a job flying then the military is the best way to go, but it's a gamble on many levels. Other than that if you just love flying then it helps to be rich.
Re:Huh? - Plenty of work to keep both pilots busy (Score:4, Informative)
There's an article, by a commercial pilot, about the myths of jets able to "fly themselves" at http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2009/11/19/askthepilot342 [salon.com] . You have to scroll down a little to get to the meat of it, but there's plenty up there to keep 2 people busy.
He also talks about how busy things can get in an earlier article http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_the_pilot/2007/08/31/askthepilot243/index.html [salon.com] .
Re:Waste (Score:4, Informative)
That's exactly right. People don't understand what a co-pilot is. No airline refers to the second cockpit member as a co-pilot. They are both pilots. One is a Captain and the other is a First Officer--the sole difference being one of seniority, not training or skill. They two typically take turns flying every other leg, and both are required to balance the workload. No transport airplane will be certified for single-pilot operation unless it has been specifically designed for one pilot, and none have. There are good reasons to have two humans up there--to back each other up, and use their combined judgement to handle situations when things are not normal. It's not a matter of technology replacing the pilot's mechanical skills. A computer would have to replace the pilot's mind, and we're not at that point yet. Certainly it's crazy for any Windows IT person to suggest that technology is reliable enough to hold the lives of hundreds in its silicon hands. They of all people should know better.
Re:Waste (Score:4, Informative)
That's a dangerous overgeneralization to make. Some people might misunderstand that sentence and interpret that to mean that any autopilot-equipped aircraft is capable of doing this. That is not the case.
First, the avionics aboard many planes in service are not configured from the manufacturer for autoland (e.g. every 737 that American Airlines flies [airliners.net]). These can only do "coupled" approaches.
Second, many smaller planes and older planes are not fully fly-by-wire, so they would require a serious retrofit to make them capable of full autoland.
Third, not all airports have the facilities to support autoland.
If you limit yourself only to fully fly-by-wire planes and limit yourself to major airports, that statement is true. However, the autopilot system in a sizable percentage of aircraft in the air today are NOT capable of autonomous landing.
And, of course, as you alluded to, in the event of an autoland glitch, the system kicks out and you're back under full manual control, which means you still NEED a pilot. So yeah, it's possible, but it's not a good idea.
Re:Waste (Score:3, Informative)
The idea of training a flight attendant to perform a landing in the case of a pilot's death means that you would be trusting a minimally trained "pilot" to land a large jet with several hundred people aboard about once per year. That's absolute insanity. That's not cost cutting. It's homicide.
You're assuming a manual landing. It should be reasonably easy to train a flight attendant to program an autopilot to land.
Re:Waste (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Commuter pilots in the US have been known to start as low as 19,000/year (less than a manager at Taco Bell, accordign to M. Moore).
Employees are estimated to cost around double what they are paid in various taxes and overhead.
Re:Waste (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Some people might misunderstand that sentence and interpret that to mean that any autopilot-equipped aircraft is capable of doing this. That is not the case.
First, the avionics aboard many planes in service are not configured from the manufacturer for autoland (e.g. every 737 that American Airlines flies [airliners.net]). These can only do "coupled" approaches.
The 737 is delivered from Boeing fully capable of autoland. All modern airplanes these days have at least 2 completely separate autopilots (the 757, 767, and 747-400 have 3 autopilots). However, AA orders their 737s with HUDs (Head Up Display) which are certified by the FAA for the pilot to hand-fly a Cat IIIb approach (700 feet forward visibility, no ceiling). The cost of the HUD quickly pays for itself since the airline does not have to maintain the airplane's autoland certification because the pilots are doing the approaches, not the airplane.
A "coupled" approach simply means that both autopilots are active at the same time, which is normally the case during an autoland; no transport jet's autopilot is certified for a single-autopilot autoland. Coupling the autopilots allows for cross-checking and either fail-passive or fail-operational autoflight. Typically, a two-autopilot airplane like the 737 is certified as fail-passive: a failure of the one autopilot will render the airplane unable to complete the autoland but will not dramatically affect the attitude of the airplane as the pilot takes over. A three-autopilot airplane has both fail-passive and fail-operational characteristics: fail-operational means one autopilot can drop out and the remaining two can still perform the autoland; a second failure is fail-passive and the pilot has to do something.
Second, many smaller planes and older planes are not fully fly-by-wire, so they would require a serious retrofit to make them capable of full autoland.
Fly-by-wire is not a requirement for autoland. Transport-category aircraft have been doing autolands since the 1960s.
If you limit yourself only to fully fly-by-wire planes and limit yourself to major airports, that statement is true. However, the autopilot system in a sizable percentage of aircraft in the air today are NOT capable of autonomous landing.
There are almost no commercial aircraft flying around these days that don't have autoland capabilities. The last of the older generation jet aircraft such as the DC-9 and the 727 are mostly out of major airline passenger service. Any commercial transport jet made after around 1980 has autoland capability by default.
Re:Waste (Score:4, Informative)
Commercial airlines are already required by law to do a certain percentage of their landings automatically. They just don't tell you...
ref [airliners.net]
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Commercial airlines are already required by law to do a certain percentage of their landings automatically. They just don't tell you...
what you mean is that pilots must remain proficient in Cat 3 and 3a approaches - so they must maintain currency with those procedures by performing one every once in a while. This currency can also be accomplished in a simulator.
Cat 3 and 3a autoland has been around for a long time. (1965)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland [wikipedia.org]
Trying to do one of these without a co-pilot is ill-advised (1 set eyes on instruments another looking out for the runway environment) - don't forget about radio calls, communication with home base / fuel management / emergencies / etc. I flew very complex, very large planes - and I can tell you that there is a real good reason for at least two in the cockpit. j
Re:The 3rd dimension (Score:4, Informative)
You have heard of 3D? Well, trains and ships and automibiles lack it. They travel on a flat service. Planes don't.
Exactly, lacking that third dimension makes it far more dangerous. You have both the introduced weak points of connecting to the 2D surface (think tyre blow-outs, trains derailing, etc) and also critical reliance on brakes. With planes 3D removes these weak spots and you have an extra dimension in which to take evasive action.
What happens to a ship whose engines stop? Nothing.
Not true. In the case of a large oil tanker you end up with a massive environmental disaster, as we've seen numerous times.
What happens to a car whose engines stop? Nothing.
Sure, only 11M annual road accidents in the US alone. Really safe mode of transport.
What happens to a plane whose engines stops? It crashes into the ground.
Or you could just glide down and land. Apparently even possible to land on a river I hear.
Even terrorists know this. That is why ships and trains have rarely been hijacked. There is no urgency.
The shipping around Somalia will be pleased that you've managed to alter reality to make them more safe.
Wonder how come you forgot to mention the REAL reason brake men could be removed, the simply switch that in the event of a disaster happening to the driver, the train coming to an automatic stop. Wonder why you left this device out? Because it would ruin your entire idiotic rant of "X works in situation Y, so it will work in situation Z"?
That doesn't always [wikipedia.org] work [wikipedia.org]. But aren't you arguing againt yourself? The real reason you can lose the co-pilot is that the plane can land itself in an emergency.
And oh gosh, that is OFTEN the cause of SMALL aircrafti with SINGLE pilots crashing. That is why if you fly passengers, you need two pilots.
By your reasoning, that is why cars, trains, subway systems, trams, boats and every other vehicle needs two drivers/pilots.
Phillip.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Cathay Pacific, Pilot Rates, B747 Cargo, 13 flights per month = $14,343.
That's $172,116 a year, working essentially 156 days out of 365, with maybe another 156 days layover in foreign hotels and a couple of months vacation.
My heart fucking bleeds for them, the poor underpaid loves.
I've NEVER even SEEN $172,116 all at the same time in one place.
Re:Waste (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Waste (Score:1, Informative)
One of my ex-relatives was a flight attendant. IIRC the number and role of flight attendants is an FAA rule. They are required by FAA for safety and security reasons. The fact that they serve OJ etc. was a minor irritant to my ex-relative. Many of them today heartily dislike the compromise of their role, as it turns them from professionals charged with managing a pretty large crowd of fairly stressed people and dealing with the not-uncommon health problems that can occur - recognizing the difference between a heart attack and choking on a piece of toast, and potentially preventing or dealing with a panicked mob, into shills.
I've never yet met a flight attendant who was really enthusiastic about their sales pitch.
Re:Decisions, decisions (Score:3, Informative)
To be a flight attendant in Australia you have to have your First Aid level 3. I bet you're one of those passengers who yells "where's my beer, honey" whilst wiggling an empty cup in the air and the reason I hate other passengers. I'd like to remind you who you'll be relying on when you get hurt on an aircraft (wont be me, I have a first aid level 1 (workplace) and absolute contempt for most other travellers).
Arm doors and cross check.
Re:Waste (Score:2, Informative)
Disclaimer: I am a 'co'-pilot.
Mod parent up, he is absolutely correct, mod gp down, he's not.
I fly an aircraft that has no autoland feature. I fly in and out of airports that mostly do not offer an autoland facility.
All the pilots that I fly with have some vulnerability. Every so often (most days), one guy in the cockpit corrects the other one and averts an undesirable situation. Usually the situations involved would be more embarrassing than dangerous, but a few times, I have been very grateful to have someone else there.
But the most important thing is- if we decide (and I think that we already have) that we need human input in the flight deck, then, as humans are pink, mushy, and prone to dying at inconvenient moments (especially under stress), then we should have a backup system.
Also, imagine we have airliners where only one pilot is looking after the aircraft. Where was he trained? Was his first flight in that aircraft one where he was on his own, with just 150 trusting passengers for company? Every airline FO is a trainee Captain.
Anyway, MOL has quite a reputation in the pilot community (such as it is) for making outrageous comments like this to get publicity / upset people. And it's a very widely held perception that airline senior management never like pilots, as we're far too expensive...
Just my 1.3 pence!
Charlie