On September 27th, the ECA FTL Working Group held its second meeting of 2023.

The meeting attracted 27 representatives from Germany, France, Luxemburg, Austria, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Iceland, Turkey, Romania, Norway, The Netherlands, the UK and Belgium.

The meeting started with a round of national updates: this took longer than foreseen – notably due a lot of (similar) fatigue-related issues during the past summer occurring in all airlines.

The Working Group discussed the Baines-Simmons report: this report was commissioned by ECA, and based on 6.900 responses, the report highlights serious areas of concern regarding the implementation of the current EASA FTL requirements for FRM (non-punitive vs fear of reporting, exceptional vs routine use of Commander’s Discretion, expected vs unplanned microsleeps, …). The report can be downloaded here: Pilot fatigue – a new report reveals safety management deficiencies

Next topic was an update of the Mirror Group on the on-going second phase of the FTL Effectiveness Study, for which ECA tried to activate more operators, followed by an extensive update on the timelines of the different Rule Making Tasks (RMT’s), studies and FTL soft law changes. The working group was also informed on a delay of the Practical Guide, and on the future of this document in general.

Looking ahead, the Working Group discussed the IFALPA’s position paper on crew participation in FRM and agreed it is a tool for crew members to be included in their airline’s Fatigue Action Safety Group, the upcoming FRM Workshop in Vienna on January 30-31, 2024, and the next IFALPA FRMS training courses.

Next ECA FTL Working Group meeting dates are set for 2024 on April 10th and September 25th.