American Airlines Pilots Have a Plan for “Humanizing Air Travel”

The Allied Pilots Association which represents American Airlines pilots, has settled on three simple principles for bringing civility back to the beleaguered industry.

Discouraged by recent headlines exposing the darker side of modern air travel, the Allied Pilots Association (APA) which represents more than 15,000 American Airlines pilots has a plan for restoring a little bit of the glamour to air travel or at the very least bringing some dignity back to the aircraft cabin. Union leaders believe that focussing on three core principals for “humanizing air travel” will help change the culture and the customer experience at the airport and in the air.

“As pilots, we have our passengers’ backs,” APA President Captain Dan Carey explains. “We strive to uphold these principles every day with every flight. By calling attention to them now, we are committing ourselves to helping reverse a troubling trend in air travel.”

The principles Carey is exposing are safety, reliability and empowerment. American Airlines pilots also outlined how these three basic tenants might just make flying a little less dehumanizing for everyone involved.

In the name of safety, the labor group is calling for reforms that ensure flight crews are well rested. The APA is also urging the passage of the so-called Cabin Air Safety Act, which helps to legally protect passengers and crew members from the risks associated with toxic cabin air events. For its part, the union has pledged that a full 20 percent of the membership dues it collects in the future will be devoted to aviation safety issues.

For the sake of reliability, the APA is calling for an end to the rigid departure policies at the gate that pilots say have caused passengers to feel mistreated and airlines to be vilified in the press. AA pilots also criticized the airline industry’s tendency to aggressively schedule crews, warning that when flights start to run behind tight schedules they leave no margin for a delay, leaving crews frequently prohibited from flying by FAA mandated timeouts for rest – a situation which only compounds those delays.

Finally, American Airlines pilots are calling for airlines to give pilots empowerment to make decisions in the best interest of passengers, rather than being governed entirely by rigid airline policies. Crews say that if captains are supported rather than second guessed by management, then embarrassing situations like the now-infamous case of Doctor David Dao might never have occurred at all.

“Pilots know that everyone on the aircraft wants the same thing: a safe, reliable, comfortable travel experience,” Carey said in a statement announcing the new initiative this week. “Pilots and passengers are all in it together, and we are dedicated to working with passengers and American Airlines’ management to make sure that happens. APA will wield our influence on behalf of our passengers and pilots to advocate for better air travel, and we urge others to join us and adopt this approach as well.”

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