Under this - slightly
provocative - question Members of the European Parliament,
researchers and pilots gathered on Tuesday (22 March) for a
breakfast debate in the Parliament.
Hosted by MEPs Agnes
Jongerius (S&D) and Georges Bach (EPP), they examined the key
findings of the recent ‘Safety Culture in European Aviation’ study
by the London School of Economics (LSE) and EUROCONTROL.
Pilots called on
decision makers to stop spreading “alternative truths” and instead
recognise that not all airlines honour the same safety culture
principles and that some business and employment models could be
detrimental to aviation safety.
“The LSE Study
makes it hard for anybody to question the existence of a link
between safety and socio-economic factors in aviation”, says ECA
President Capt. Dirk
Polloczek. “The decisions
taken in the management boardroom on commercial priorities, on
business set-ups and on employment forms, do have an undeniable
impact on the safety culture of an airline. And because safety
culture is an important precursor of safety, this study is a wake-up
call for companies and EU decision-makers alike.”
The LSE study reveals
a number of clear trends & gaps in Europe’s aviation safety culture:
Atypically employed pilots in self-employment, on zero- hour
contracts or in temporary agency or pay-to-fly (P2F) schemes have a
significantly more negative perception of their airline’s safety
culture than their colleagues. This gap between pilots on atypical
contracts and directly employed pilots is a finding that echoes
previous scientific studies (e.g. ‘Atypical Employment in Aviation’,
Ghent University, 2015) that identified atypical employment as an
emerging trend which could negatively impact safety.
Further
alarming gaps in safety culture perception exist between Network,
Low Cost and Cargo carriers: “While traditional network carriers
still score high on many safety-related items, there is a striking
discrepancy with Low Cost and Cargo carriers on all categories
measured by the researchers,” explains
Ignacio Plaza,
ECA Deputy Secretary General. “The industry must dig deeper to
identify - and to address - the underlying reasons why some airlines
have a weaker safety culture than others.”
The safety culture
gap is particularly striking when it comes to the pilot fatigue: 83%
of pilots working in Cargo and 76% in Low Cost companies state that
pilots are tired at work (compared to an average of 52% for all
pilots surveyed), and the same is true for 64.5% of pilots on
atypical contracts. However, only few are comfortable to file a
fatigue report - meaning that fatigue is widely under-reported.
Lack of trust in
safety reporting and reluctance to report is another serious problem
identified by the LSE study. Only 23% of pilots consider that
National Aviation Authorities manage safety reports well and less
than 50% think that aviation authorities take safety seriously.
“This lack of
confidence in the reporting system has important consequences on
safety oversight,” says Dirk Polloczek. “In a sector where there are
no, or only few accidents and serious incidents, aviation
authorities measure safety performance mainly with regard to the
reports received. But if pilots and other safety professional do not
submit reports, or they are not processed well, our whole safety
management and oversight system is at risk. This is yet another
reason why Europe’s pilots are committed to working together with
authorities, researchers, decision-makers and the airlines to
address the weak links identified by the LSE study and to improve
the safety culture in all airlines in Europe.” |