NetJets: Keeping Private Aviation Safe

     Among one of the most reliable and lucrative private air carriers is NetJets, a carrier that has been safely delivering satisfied clients to their destinations for over sixty years. Establishing itself as the first ever private jet carrier in the world, NetJets has been upholding the highest safety standards possible since 1964, a testament to its embrace of the constantly changing world of aviation safety. With its various safety features and programs, NetJets has not had a single fatality in over fifty-four years, defying the current safety statistics in private aviation. Such programs allow NetJets to maintain their high safety standards and continue to set an example for other private carriers.

    One of the most streamlined safety programs NetJets has to offer is their ASAP, or Aviation Safety Action Program. This serves as a voluntary reporting that encourages all pilots to come forward and express any and all concerns about any area of aviation safety. Not only does this program grant the pilot a degree of immunity for any potential investigations pertaining to the incident being reported, but it also allows crew members to become more comfortable with expressing even the smallest of safety concerns. NetJets' ASAP program helps identify and eliminate safety risks at the root, maintaining the high standards of safety they are known for.  

    NetJets' fleet is, in addition to being wildly luxurious, is among the safest and most advanced of any other private air carrier in the world. Boasting multiple variants of Embraer, Cessna Citations, and Bombardier aircraft, NetJets' aircraft are equipped with the newest safety features, including but not limited to electronic heads up displays, cutting edge avionics equipment, high resolution terrain mapping systems, four-axis autopilot, backup systems for primary aircraft features, and much more. In addition to all of this, NetJets is committed to keeping up with the latest aviation safety technology, with more than 40% of their fleet being under five years old. With these aircraft, pilots are equipped with one of the most user friendly and efficient flight decks available today, allowing safety to continue to be at the forefront of all priorities. 

    The training programs NetJets has to offer ensures that nothing short of the safest habits and skills are being instilled in their pilots. First, NetJets primarily hires seasoned pilots from both airlines and air force groups from all over Europe and North America, ensuring it has the best flight crew it can possibly hire. All applicants are put through a rigorous and strict training program which in addition to meeting legal standards, has safety and deviation standards that surpass the law, verifying that the highest of safety expectations are being met prior to a pilot sitting in the cockpit of one of their aircraft. NetJets not only surpasses legal expectations in that area but also requires that its captains have 3,000 hours rather than the required 1,500. With the highest of standards and strict training programs, NetJets consistently produces the safest and best pilots to fly its fleet. 

    One of the hallmarks of NetJets' safety programs is its constant flight monitoring system. Rigorous monitoring occurs before, during, and after every flight taking factors such as weather, crew fatigue, the mechanical soundness of the aircraft, and much more. All of this is captured by NetJets on their website, stating, "Our in-house experts help us to review every flight at least 36 hours in advance, in-line with the weather forecast. On the day, our licensed dispatch experts carefully assess weather conditions, planning alternative routes when necessary. Even after your flight has taken off, we have state-of-the-art equipment to give pilots and dispatchers up-to-the-minute weather reports to ensure your safety and comfort." Pertaining to safety and other resources available, NetJets states, "While other companies may assign pilots to different jets as and when needed, our pilots fly a single aircraft type. This means they understand its virtues to the very last detail and are entirely equipped to handle any and every event. Additionally, the health and wellbeing of our team are paramount. We closely monitor each individual crew member’s schedule and respond to any risk of fatigue well in advance of their scheduled flight. We also employ an in-house psychologist to assess our pilots and make sure they’re happy, comfortable and able to perform to our high standards, whenever and wherever they fly."

    NetJets has and will continue to lead private air carriers in both safety and efficiency of service, marking itself as a trailblazer in private aviation. Their safety programs will continue to give their crews and passengers the resources they need to maximize safety on every flight, thus setting a stunning example of what proper aviation safety practices should look like in private aviation.

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Hazardous Attitudes: Aviation's Insidious Killer

     In a study released by the Federal Aviation Administration, upwards of 80% of aviation incidents and accidents boil down to one thing: Human error. These captains wear a scarlet letter, and the general public begins its ritualistic finger pointing. The fact of the matter is that the same people pointing fingers are prone to the exact weaknesses that befell the pilots, which are better known in the aviation world as "hazardous attitudes". Hazardous attitudes spare nobody, and for this reason, it is integral to aviation safety that all pilots can recognize hazardous attitudes, remedy them, and most importantly, remind themselves that they are not above getting them.

    The insidious nature of hazardous attitudes is what makes them as dangerous as they are, as one cannot remedy what they do not detect. Often times, the proper aeronautical decision-making skills of the pilot are compromised by defense mechanisms associated with the hazardous attitudes that prevent them from accepting the reality of the situation at hand. There are five hazardous attitudes recognized in the aviation world, those being macho, invulnerability, impulsivity, anti-authority, and resignation. Macho describes the need to show off and stick it to the others. It is flying with your ego, not your skills as a pilot. Invulnerability pertains to the "it won't happen to me" mentality. It is a false sense of invincibility. Impulsivity is acting on quick desires and rushing things without properly employing proper decision making. Anti-authority is the refusal to follow the regulations and guidelines in place and can possibly land you in some very hot water with the Federal Aviation Administration. Finally, we have resignation, which is a consuming feeling of helplessness and mental withdraw from the task at hand. These attitudes often go unnoticed by the pilot and are often times caught when it is too late.

    For example, you are feeling pretty sick the morning of your flight. You are very congested, and your head hurts a ton. You are dead set on making it to your destination, as you have an interview that you need to be on time for. Despite the fact that you are not feeling fit to fly, you fly anyway, as the desire to make it to your destination is overwhelming, and you've flown with a cold before. You'll be fine, right? Right here, you have displayed both impulsivity and invulnerability. In your mind, you have flown with a head cold before, so how bad can it be? Plus, you NEED to get to your destination. The reality of the situation is that you are not in a fit condition to fly and are not properly weighing the risks at hand. So, you depart, and almost immediately remember that your buddy's house is a few miles ahead. You decide it would be cool to show off, so you text your friend to go outside, and you do a very low pass over his house at 300 feet. Here, you have displayed both antiauthority and macho. You busted regulations and got within 500 feet of an object on the ground in a sparsely populated area so you could show off a cool trick to your buddy on the ground. You figure it's something super cool you can brag about with him when you get on the ground, and who cares if you got within 500 feet? Who's going to stop you? You continue the flight, but upon reaching altitude, the pressure in your sinuses is so great from the illness, you feel your ear drums rupture and are overcome with immense pain. In your agony, you have neglected to properly fly the aircraft, and you are now in an unusual attitude. Looking down at the ground, your ears ringing and in excruciating pain, you figure, "what's the point? This is hopeless now." Finally, you have displayed resignation, and the safety of your flight is completely compromised. 

    It is easy to look at this scenario and go, who on earth would ever think to do those things? The answer is simple and something we are all prone to: Complacency. Even the most seasoned pilots with thousands of hours get too comfortable with their skills and succumb to these attitudes. Think it can't happen to you and that you've never displayed hazardous attitudes before? Congratulations, you have just demonstrated invulnerability. Every pilot is prone to the cognitive traps that come with being a human being, which is why hazardous attitudes should be learned from rather than approached with judgement. Recognizing you are prone to hazardous attitudes is the first step in being able to identify and remedy them. The more pilots get comfortable with identifying hazardous attitudes, the more human error can be eliminated at the source, allowing for a safer future of aviation. 

One Pilot Isn't Enough

     The FAA reauthorization bill of 2024 brought many aspects of the aviation industry into question, with topics ranging from economic impacts to safety implications. However, something that was supposed to serve the best interests of both the aviation industry and the general public has proposed a wildly reckless, dangerous, and arguably lazy method to aid in the pilot shortage and cut down on labor costs, that being the proposition to reduce the number of pilots on commercial flight decks from two to one. This is something that should alarm not only people inside the industry, but anybody who has even flown anywhere. Aviation safety cannot and will not be compromised in the name of saving time or money so long as today's aviators use their voices.

    The effort currently being led by Airbus, one of the top global aircraft manufacturers, seeks to replace pilots with automation, and has already gained support from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Rightfully so, the proposition has stirred much concern in the aviation community and has generated significant opposition from the Airline Pilots Association, a massively effective and well-known union in the aviation industry. ALPA President, Jason Ambrosi, had led an initiative to condemn the idea, stating, “In practice, reduced-crew and single-pilot operation schemes, like Airbus’s so-called extended Minimum Crew Operations (eMCO), are a gamble with safety—and a gamble with people’s lives," (Reed, 2024). Ambrosi's insight raises the question, why is a single pilot flight deck in commercial aviation so dangerous, and why must we oppose it for the safety of our industry and the general public?

    Key points in the degradation of safety that come with a one pilot flight deck boil down to two things, those being reliability and the ability to exercise proper aeronautical decision making that would otherwise not be achieved by technology. Today's aircrafts are largely autonomous as is with the advanced autopilot systems in place, but like all things, these systems are prone to failure. When this statistically unavoidable failure inevitably occurs, there are two lines of defense left that maintain the safety of the operation, those being the captain and first officer. Not only would one be able to take over upon the other becoming incapacitated, but the high task load associated with abnormal, or emergency conditions is able to be delegated, and risks properly mitigated through crew resource management. To remove one of these pilots is to take out a vital line of defense between life and death of the souls on board. It threatens to leave one person completely alone or incapacitated during a significant system malfunction. We have two pilots in the cockpit for a very similar reason you see piston aircraft with dual magnetos- Should one fall, the other will perform in its place to keep your engine running and operation safe. Another fact of the matter is, no amount of artificial intelligence or automation on the flight deck can think outside of the box the way human beings can. Replacing years of experience, training, and insight that form proper aeronautical decision-making skills is something uniquely human and is what saves lives in the sky every day. One example is FedEx Flight 705, which suffered a hijacking attempt. While one pilot fought off the attacker, the other used his skills as a seasoned military pilot to fly a DC-10 like a fighter jet, helping to subdue the attacker and use G-forces to disorient him and thus move him further from the cockpit. The efforts of the pilots were ultimately successful and saved many lives that day. This is something uniquely human that cannot be supplemented with autonomous systems and was made possible by having two pilots on the flight deck that day. 

    Legislation that threatens the safety of the industry is such that should be fought swiftly and fiercely. Aviation is not the industry that can afford to cut corners, because such oversights result in the loss of life. Our current laws and practices are written in blood, and to proceed with eliminating pilots from the flight deck is to disregard the developments in safety that have been carefully cultivated to save lives. To help get involved and join in the effort to preserve two-man flight decks, reach out to ALPA today and see how your activism can help.

Reference:

Airbus Backing For Single Pilot Flight Deck Is ‘Insane,’ Pilot Leader Says (forbes.com)