In response to the letter by Paul Drinkwater (Flight International, 13-19 January), I in turn am appalled by the attitude of Flight International.
Our employer (Luxair) has created a negative media campaign against its own pilots just to make everybody believe the one and only cause of the Fokker 50 crash and the current safety environment are caused by this group. Therefore false statements are being made and pilots (illegally) fired. Most striking, though, is that Flight International fell in the same trap, after printing that the Airline Pilots Association of Luxembourg does not accept the flight operations quality assurance (FOQA) system for privacy reasons.
The FOQA system is fully operational and all data processed by the flight safety officer. This has been the case ever since its introduction and never interrupted. The objection of the pilots to this system is that it is based on confidential reporting, which has been destroyed by our top-level management.
Since our current chief executive personally sent the police to the home of the previous flight safety officer to retrieve confidential data, thereby breaking all International Civil Aviation Organisation standards, you can imagine the pilots are not happy with the current "safety" system. Strange? You decide. But maybe you should know better and understand that the last thing professionals, who are trained and operating according the highest standards, like to hear from a well-read and usually reliable magazine like yours is lies.
Name and address withheld
Editor's reply: We believe we have fairly and even-handedly reported the different versions of the situation detailed by ALPL and Luxair.
Source: Flight International
