Today, Tuesday 22 January 2013, European pilots and cabin crews organised actions in airports of more than 15 European countries. Under the motto « Walkout for Safety », affiliates from the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) and the European Cockpit Association (ECA) protested against the newly proposed European flight duty time rules.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has drafted rules that allow air crews to be on duty for 20-22 hours and fly over 12-hours throughout the night. These draft rules clearly ignore scientific evidence saying that safety risks increase significantly when crews are on duty for more than 10 hours. By organising this action day, ETF and ECA want to denounce the way the European Commission and EASA put the safety of passengers in danger.
National actions in 18 countries In Brussels, a Safety Petition with more than 100,000 signatures was handed over to Siim Kallas (Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of transports) and Brian Simpson (Chair of the European Parliament transport Committee). Flyers were distributed in front of the European Commission and the European Parliament calling on European politicians to take steps and put passenger safety before the commercial interests of the airlines. Other actions took place in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
You can read more about the different national actions atwww.eurocockpit.be, www.dead-tired.eu andhttps://www.facebook.com/events/126330217532228.