10 July 2025
The idea of airliners being flown by a single pilot has stalled – for the time being at least. That’s the view of the European Cockpit Association (ECA) after a report on the risks by the European aviation authority.
In June, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) published its report from a study into single-pilot and extended minimum crew operations (eMCO), carried out by a research consortium led by the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Center (NLR).
The study examined the safety implications of removing one pilot from the flight deck – either for part of the flight (eMCO) or potentially the entire flight (SiPO – single-pilot operations).
The study’s key finding could not be clearer, said the ECA which represents pilots across Europe: “An equivalent level of safety between eMCO and normal crew operations can currently not be demonstrated.”
It’s a significant blow in the airline industry’s push towards reduced aircrew operations – including Ryanair whose boss, Michael O’Leary has said he’d like to see a single pilot flying the airline’s Boeing 737s.
Captain Juan-Carlos Lozano, ECA Technical Board Director, said, “The push for eMCO is not about addressing a safety gap. It is commercially driven, and it must be viewed in that light. Any new cockpit technologies must clearly and demonstrably improve safety, and they must complement – not replace – the proven human multicrew model.”
The EASA report considered:
The report’s writers added, “In the longer-term, the presence of a ‘Smart Cockpit’ with novel workload alleviation functions, with flight crew performance, alertness, and incapacitation monitoring, and with a solution to prevent security threats may have the potential to set the basis for new operational concepts.
“However, any consideration of this will depend on the new technologies proving their safety benefit, which will require detailed assessment on the basis of data and experience gained in normal two-pilot operations.”
