European safety regulators have pushed back the timeline forecast for a rulemaking decision on reduced-crew operations in air transport, expecting that it will not emerge until the end of the decade.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) had initiated the process at the end of 2023, publishing terms of reference for introducing extended minimum-crew operations, known as ‘eMCO’.
This concept envisions that technology will advance sufficiently to enable just a single pilot to manage the cockpit during non-critical periods of cruise flight.
But while EASA’s previous update to its current three-year European aviation safety plan expected a consultation in 2025 and a decision in 2027, its latest one forecasts a postponed consultation with a decision put back to 2030.
The revised plan, published on 21 January, also substantially expands on the rulemaking task.
Rather than the previous brief reference to amending the current regulatory framework to enable safe introduction of eMCO, the revision instead specifies a framework governing safe deployment of “advanced flightdeck technologies” or “smart cockpits”.
Presence of innovations to alleviate pilot workload and support better decision-making – combined with crew performance, alertness and incapacitation monitoring, as well as threat-prevention – “sets the basis” for new concepts, it says, such as eMCO.
But EASA stresses that it expects deployment of these technologies to take place “gradually”, preceded by “robust” in-service trials.
“Additional airworthiness requirements, in the form of special conditions, are being developed to ensure the safe integration of advanced flightdeck technologies in current operations,” it adds.
“To benefit fully from the deployment of such design advancements, changes to the current use of cockpit automation, operational procedures and crew co-ordination principles might be needed.”
EASA says the rulemaking task will assess the implication of these advanced technologies, and their impact on the current regulatory assumptions – as well as the “safety barriers granted by the current multi-crew operations”.
It will propose a regulatory framework that ensures the safe integration of smart cockpits in commercial air transport operations, adding that a “comprehensive review” of human-technology interaction is required.
As part of the research, EASA is expecting publication this year of a final report from the assessment of eMCO – as well as broader single-pilot operations – which it initiated towards the end of 2021.
