BUDAPEST/COLOGNE, November 13, 2024 — This year’s EASA Annual Safety Conference took as its theme “Safety – technology – and the human dimension”, focusing on the critical importance of the well-trained human in keeping aviation operations safe, and on the parallel need to apply technology prudently to enhance aviation safety even further.
“The human will be at the centre of aviation for decades,” Florian Guillermet, Executive Director of EASA said in his opening remarks. “It is our responsibility to consider how technological developments, such as artificial intelligence, can support the human to make aviation safer still. We need to constantly ask ourselves: is aviation as safe as it can be?”
EASA used the opportunity of the conference to clarify its approach to proposals from manufacturers that foresee one pilot, rather than two, in the cockpit for specific phases of the flight, a concept referred to as “extended Minimum Crew Operations” (eMCO). To support eMCO, manufacturers are working on a “smart cockpit” that uses technology and automation to reduce crew workload, aid decision-making, enhance information management, and detect pilot fatigue or incapacitation.
“EASA has made clear from the outset that we will only approve new functionalities once they have been demonstrated to bring safety benefits,” Guillermet said. “We are now adjusting our rulemaking tasks to make clear exactly what we mean by this.”
This topic was discussed further during the first panel of the conference, which looked more widely at the role of technology in enhancing aviation safety. The panel highlighted that all relevant parties want first to see the changes to the cockpit so we can evaluate whether these have indeed enhanced safety while maintaining the current way of operating, i.e. with two pilots on the flightdeck. As a general principle, any new technologies or concepts in aviation must always enhance safety.
Two further panels focused on longer-term actions to tackle current safety risks. The first panel centred on interference with global navigation satellite system (GNSS) navigation close to conflict zones, where blocking or falsifying of signals (jamming and spoofing) presents an issue for pilots in those zones. While currently safety is assured by pilot awareness of the potential issues, there was agreement that in the longer term, a more resilient technological solution at system level is needed to better safeguard decision-making.
The second panel looked at human factors in runway incursions, referring in particular to the need to prevent recurrence of the type of accident seen at Haneda, Tokyo on January 2, 2024, where five people lost their lives due to an aircraft collision on the runway. The panel discussed whether humans were the “weakest link” or rather a strong factor in preventing such occurrences. Either way, better use of technology to facilitate decision-making was seen as an important step to reduce the number of those accidents or incidents.
The remaining two panels looked more closely at humans themselves. Societal expectations were seen as a driver for technological change, particularly on environmental grounds, to reduce emissions and meet the European Union climate goals. Whereas aviation is responsible for less than 4% of the total emissions contributing to climate change according to Our World in Data, there is still an urgent need to limit its impact. Noise reduction was also seen as an important driver for innovation.
All panels stressed the importance of a well-trained human workforce in all areas of aviation, and the final discussion focused on the need to attract a new generation of staff into aviation, some of whom will need entirely new skill sets as technology develops.
Speakers in the panels, addresses, and flash talks spanned national authorities, the industry, pilot associations, EU bodies, and various other aviation experts. The conference was held in Budapest, Hungary from October 30-31, 2024 under the auspices of the Hungarian EU presidency and was attended by around 220 people.
A video playlist from the event is now available on the Annual Safety Conference 2024 event page.
About European Union Aviation Safety Agency - EASA
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is the centrepiece of the European Union's strategy for aviation safety. Our mission is to promote and achieve the highest common standards of safety and environmental protection in civil aviation. Based in Cologne, the Agency employs experts and administrators from all over Europe.
For more information, please contact:
Janet Northcote
Head of Communication
European Union Aviation Safety Agency
Email: communications [at] easa.europa.eu
