Airwork: Punching a Time Clock

Tom Benenson

Wednesday, December 08, 2010 at 11:07 PM ET

Verified

Logging hours towing banners doesn't
guarantee competency in an airline cockpit.

Key Takeaways:

Congress's 2010 Airline Safety Act mandated a 1,500-hour Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) certificate for airline crew members, a "knee-jerk reaction" to the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash.
Critics argue that this hour-based requirement is an ineffective measure of pilot competency, contending that the Colgan crash was caused by poor training, lack of professionalism, and inadequate adherence to procedures, not insufficient flight time.
The law is predicted to worsen the quality of flight instruction, as instructors are forced to amass hours in benign conditions irrelevant to airline operations, further delaying their career progression.
Ultimately, the article advocates for improved safety through competency-based training, rigorous assessment, and professional development programs implemented by the industry, FAA, and airlines, rather than relying on arbitrary flight hour mandates.

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There are jobs in which you’re required to punch a time clock, and there are jobs in which your value is not measured in how long you do something but rather in what it is you do.

So what does this have to do with aviation? Congress, in its questionable wisdom, has passed a law that, in effect, determines a pilot’s competency by the number of hours he or she “sits” at his or her “desk” and not by what he or she does while “sitting.”