February 28th - Flight Deck Futures: BALPA's Vision with Amy Leversidge
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2024
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy Leversidge, BALPA's pioneering general secretary, discusses the critical balance between technology and human expertise in aviation, expressing concerns over reduced crew proposals. She emphasises the importance of addressing air pollution for passenger safety and champions a more inclusive future for the industry.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. |
| 0:08.5 | It's Wednesday the 28th of February. |
| 0:11.2 | And I have a very special guest today, Amy Leversich, who is the new General Secretary of the British Airlines Pilots Association, or BALPA, and she joined |
| 0:23.6 | the union in January this year, and it's my first opportunity properly to talk to her. So, Amy, welcome. |
| 0:32.6 | Thank you for having me on. What do you think of this aviation business? Because if I'm not mistaken, |
| 0:38.6 | you've spent your working life mostly in public sector unions. I have. It's fantastic. It's been a |
| 0:45.7 | massive honour to be elected as Bauper's new general secretary. You know, fantastic. They've put |
| 0:51.6 | their faith in me to come along. I mean, I'm really driven |
| 0:55.3 | by getting outcomes for members and I think that's what the members were kind of attracted to with me. |
| 1:01.8 | But, you know, I kind of think I've worked in a number of different unions. I've worked for the Royal |
| 1:06.4 | College of Midwives and for the FDA, the represent civil servants and now BALPA. And I think for most union members, they want the kind of same thing. They want to be able to do the job that they love and be valued for it and do that in a safe environment. And that's true if you're a midwife, if you're a civil servant, if you're a pilot. So it's kind of, it's quite similar when you get down to the, to the basics of what |
| 1:27.7 | people want from their trade union. Now, there are over 10,000 members in BALPA, if I'm not |
| 1:33.0 | mistaken, 85% of the pilots in the UK belong to the union and it has a long and proud history, |
| 1:40.9 | in particular in the area of safety, which of course is something that we all are |
| 1:45.8 | concerned about. I know that Balba is focusing on something called reduced crew operation. |
| 1:53.6 | Tell me more about what that concept is and what the union's concerns are. |
| 1:59.6 | So reduced crew operations is this idea |
| 2:02.8 | that they could develop technology on the plane |
| 2:06.9 | to be able to have either only one pilot on the flight deck |
| 2:11.4 | or even no pilots on the flight deck. |
| 2:13.9 | We've got obvious concerns about that |
| 2:16.1 | because we believe that safety starts with two. |
... |
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