Capt. Tim Canoll, president of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), laid out the industry’s initiatives to continue and build upon the airline industry’s safety record at an address last week before the Aero Club of Washington.
In addition to the several safety issues that ALPA is working to advance, Canoll efforts to push back against attempts to weaken pilot training and qualification regulations. The training regimen has helped to keep flying safe, he said.
“The current system allows credit hours for different levels of training and flight-hour experience. This system is working to keep our industry safe,” Canoll said. “And we’re not willing to gamble with our passengers’ safety to run some policy experiment pulled from a white paper or a PowerPoint presentation. Airline pilots fly the planes. We protect our passengers. And we train for life to keep the public safe and our industry strong.”
Canoll also told attendees that ALPA will continue to highlight areas for improvement in the transporting of lithium batteries by air. Further, the association will work to eliminate the risk from “undeclared” dangerous goods that, because they are improperly labeled or packaged, could also cause fires on board aircraft.
ALPA is the largest airline pilot union in the world. It represents over 60,000 pilots at 34 U.S. and Canadian airlines.