In the COVID-19 age, the public has had a rare view into the cockpit thanks to a recent story that two airline pilots slept off in the middle of a flight and missed the plane’s landing.
According to the business news website Aviation Herald, two Ethiopian Airlines pilots were dozing off at the same time as they were meant to be landing the aircraft. The autopilot disengaged and an alarm went off, waking them awake.
Investigations are still ongoing to determine precisely what transpired during the flight, but one thing is clearly clear: There is a global scarcity of pilots and other flight crew members, which may result in fatigue and burnout among employees.
According to Lindsey Roeschke, a travel and hospitality analyst for Morning Consult, “I believe it’s representative of a growing worry that pilots have throughout the world about simply being overworked, need to work more overtime, because of those pilot shortages.”
Why is there a scarcity of pilots?
Airlines almost ceased operations in 2020 and 2021 due to the spread of COVID-19, and airlines offered early retirement to hundreds of pilots in an attempt to save expenses. A large number of senior pilots have also retired as planned due to an ageing workforce, thus lowering the number of available passengers.
There is currently no fast cure, according to Roeschke, who also noted that even boosting compensation is counterproductive since it only encourages pilots to switch to airlines that pay more rather than increasing the pilot pool.
“Airlines are free to recruit as many employees as they choose, but the training and certification process for pilots is lengthy.
When pilots first go through those processes, there is a time commitment as well as a money commitment to make “explained Roeschke. So, regrettably, everything that occurred during the epidemic has a lengthy tail.
According to experts, airlines should modify their schedules in order to prevent pilot tiredness and the costly flight delays and cancellations that have recently afflicted the airline sector.
In keeping with this, London’s Heathrow Airport announced this summer that it would restrict daily passenger volume at 100,000 and instructed airlines to halt selling tickets for summer flights.
Although reducing some of those routes and lowering expectations for how many planes airlines can really operate may help to prevent last-minute delays and cancellations, she said, “That’s not what we want to hear as passengers.
As Roeschke added “Short-term effects might include a little decrease in flight availability, a slight increase in cost, and a slight increase in crowding, all of which are annoying to hear as passengers.
But will assist in preventing those who have the worst experience—showing up at the airport only to learn that “your flight is cancelled”—from doing so.”