Sir - My first impression from R P Holubowicz's letter (Flight International, 11-17 and 25-31 January) was that the general secretary of the International Air Carriers Association expects pilots to act like robots.
More interesting is the statement by K Koplin (Flight International, Letters, 1-7 February), the new secretary general of the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA), who was unhappy about the article "Duty bound" (Flight International, 14-20 December, P32).
I believe the article to be correct and I claim that it was the JAA Operations (OPS) Committee which "thought up" the latest proposal and has, over the years, changed proposals quite arbitrarily.
The validity of this process must further be questioned in view of the also-arbitrary imposition of a requirement for a two-thirds majority of votes from member authorities, a procedure which has been used throughout the last two or three OPS Committee meetings before changes could be made to the proposals. Thus, after proper discussion and consultation, amendments sought by a significant majority of OPS Committee Members were still rejected.
Worst of all, however, is that the JAA did not listen to medical advice. I have proposed that the medical experts alone be tasked with finding a new scientific proposal, but that was not acceptable to the Committee.
We are awaiting a medical report compiled by NASA, "Principles and guidelines for duty and rest scheduling in commercial aviation", wherein five of the world's leading scientists in the area of fatigue are stating "hard figures" for maximum flight duty times. It is interesting to note that one of the authors is the JAA OPS Committee medical advisor, Dr Hans Wegmann.
It is also interesting to note, that since the latest proposal has been published, the definition of flight-duty period has been changed to "check-in to check-out" - a lowering of the time by half an hour. It seems that the proposals are at least going in the right direction.
To conclude: the secretary general of the JAA states that the OPS Committee believes that these proposals represent the highest level of harmonisation attainable between the European aviation authorities. The pilots say that the proposals were supposed to be a flight-safety system, definitely not an "attainable harmonisation".
The International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations, therefore, remains strongly opposed to the proposals in their current form - they are unsafe and dangerous.
Capt. FLEMMING SORENSEN
Principal vice-president
International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations
Chertsey, Surrey, UK
...Sir - I was amazed at Mr Koplin's final sentence: "The Operations Committee believes that the proposals represent the highest level of harmonisation attainable between the European aviation authorities." Medical evidence: ignore it; pilots' views: ignore them - above all we must get agreement.
It is a shame that the Committee did not have the confidence to draw up and publish a safe flight-time limitation scheme (FTLS) and challenge the states of Europe to comply. Mr Koplin and his Committee should realise that, sooner or later, they will have to explain to an accident inquiry how they arrived at their FTLS and why the views of doctors and pilots were ignored. I am sure that no legal expert in Europe is going to be impressed with "harmonisation" as the answer.
A D BRINKMAN
Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK
Source: Flight International
