Mar 08, 2022

Starting in c. 2018 there were some talks about single-pilot operations (SPO); possibly this talk was started as a way of dealing with the pilot shortage. Nonetheless, the idea was that only one pilot would be required to fly an airliner, instead of the standard two that are required for most airliners and in some cases, a reserve pilot for longer trips and even an engineer for older aircraft. What we must ask is, “why would we need to shift to SPO?” There are numerous reasons why an SPO may be desirable. Reasons range from the cost of operating the airlines themselves, to the gradual need of not having two pallets in the cockpit because of advances in technology. Yet, the most striking need may be due to the continuing pilot shortage.

The aviation industry in particular the airline segment has always tried to find ways not only to save on cost but utilize the latest technology that is available to it. This segment of the industry unlike the pilot training segment is much more ready to accept new technology and adopt them. This article will take a dive into The idea of SPO in airlines that operate under Part 121 of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulation (14 CFR).

When the average person hears about single-pilot operations, one immediately thinks about: "How different it would be to not have the usual two pilots up front flying the aircraft while passengers are sitting in the back?" While this may be a hard thing to imagine for those who have not realized that at one point there were as many as four persons in the cockpit operating the aircraft. And that number was reduced over the years to two, For virtually all passenger-carrying airlines. Given all of these facts, what is the likelihood of single-pilot operation being affected in the US within the next 10-20 years? In the sections that follow we will talk About this idea in some detail, as it relates to regulation, the overall industry, airlines, pilots, and flight schools.

Key takeaways

1. Single-pilot operations are a real possibility in the coming years for US airlines.

2. There are regulatory constraints to implementing single-pilot operations.

3. There are unique challenges for the aviation industry In general if single-pilot operations are implemented within the airlines.

4. Airlines will have a distinct set of challenges and opportunities as a result of the implementation of single-pilot operations

5. Flight schools due to the implementation of single-pilot operations will either be worse off, Better off or remain the same as it relates to the overall segment as a group economically.

What might general regulatory approval look like?

Very few things get crammed through regulations as it relates to the FAA. There is a long process for approving regulations to get things moving unless it’s related to national security or other extraneous factors that would see regulations and laws related to the aviation space being passed in an expeditious way. With that being said, there are a lot of things that must go into consideration for the FAA to give its recommendations to lawmakers to approve SPO under 14 CFR. There are a couple of questions the FAA would like to have answered, and one can rest assured that most of those questions are going to be geared around the safety of flight under SPO. It is clear that the FAA may take into consideration certain factors such as the availability of pilots, airlines' business models, and other factors that may go into the decision-making process. However, the main focus will be on the ability to guarantee at a bare minimum the current safety record on the SPO. So what are some of the things that the FAA might look at in the aim to approve SPO?

1. The underlying technology - Since undoubtedly what will enable SPO is the ability for an aircraft technical system to be able to do most if not all of the work the second pilot would have done, while a single pilot is operating an aircraft. This means that the FAA will be scrutinizing the underlying technology to ensure that it’s capable and ready for the kind of reliable task necessary for safe SPO. This is particularly important especially in light of the fact that we had two occasions where one type of computerized pilot assistive system malfunctioned, the Boeing 737 Max’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). This caused two airline crashes within months of each other with the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, killing 189 and 157 people respectively.
2. Additional capabilities, if any, for the single-pilot operators- The FAA would want to make sure that if there is any additional capabilities that may be necessary to operate an aircraft safely by the single pilot that those capabilities are able to be trained into pilots and maintained at the highest standards. No doubt a single pilot may have more workload, while that workload may not be doubled because of a missing pilot, but it may be increased slightly because of the need to monitor more systems.
3. Economical considerations - The FAA may want to also consider whether or not this move may help to alleviate the pilot shortage. 

How would this affect the overall aviation industry? 

The effects on the wider economy are numerous and of varying degrees, with “trickle-down” effects that can reach even the most remote sectors of the industry. Other effects and be so powerful that they spill over into other industries, though disparate from the aviation industry, or ancillary to it. Further complicating the analysis of the industrial effects of single-pilot operations is the fact that it is impossible to accurately forecast distant future effects on all groups and segments that may be affected either positively or negatively. That being said there are a few short to medium term effects we might expect in the overall industry as a result of the implementation of SPO:

1. Economics  - The main consideration from an economic standpoint for the implementation of SPO in the airlines is whether or not this would lead to the overall real economic growth of the industry. The word real in this case defines not mere growth in the number of flights, customers, aircraft and equipment purchases, etc, but positive monetary growth for all the segments of the industry after accounting for inflation. If SPO can effectively reduce cost while increasing output then there will be real industry growth. If it can not do this, then no matter how many new aircraft are purchased, people hired, and passengers flown around the world, there will be no growth, and SPO would not have had a positive economic effect. 
2. Sociopolitical - Increases or reductions in industry-related jobs. With relations to job-related effects overall in the industry, with all things being equal, with the exception of pilot jobs - to be discussed later In this article - so far as the number of flight and customers (air travelers) serviced remains the same then the non-pilot jobs should not be affected. However, If the opposite is true and the number of customers serviced rises or falls, then there will be a corresponding rise or fall in the non-pilot jobs in the industry. 
3. Carbon footprint - From what can be seen at this point, there is no reason to believe that a move to SPO will reduce carbon emissions. All things being equal, carbon emissions will remain the same in terms of current quantity and trends. However, as we will see later in the article, there may be another side to this, where the move to SPO could lead to cost saving for airlines who then pass those savings off to their customers, which leads to more travelers and more aircraft flying around, thus, increasing carbon emissions. 

How could SPO affect the airlines?  

There are many ways that SPO could affect the airlines. However, this article would like to focus on a couple of the major effects that one could see readily. 

• Staffing - Staffing is one of the first things to consider when thinking through the factors that could affect airlines as a result of SPO. If all else remains equal, the general ancillary and support staff for the airlines should not have any noticeable changes. While a lot of the staffing in the airlines outside of human resource management – which relatively is a small proportion in comparison to the actual pilot staff - seem to support the pilots themselves as they do their jobs, in fact, these jobs actually support flights rather than individual pilots. We believe that if the numbers of flights remain the same, then the number of support staff for those flights will remain the same. Notwithstanding this, it is clear that if the number of flights does not increase, there will inevitably be a reduction in the number of airline pilots employed.
• Increased cost - There is a consideration for increased cost as SPO is adopted across the board. However, the increased cost that may be anticipated may not be as one might initially think. The primary cost would be the cost of additional equipment necessary to support SPO. These costs are generally fixed costs that can be offset over time and with scale. Some of these costs include the actual equipment themselves inside and outside the aircraft, support personnel to maintain the equipment, and any wear and tear that may be suspected over time.
• Cost-savings - One of the reasons that SPO is so appealing to stakeholders in the industry - obviously with the exception of the pilots themselves -  is the possible cost savings enabled by a reduction in one of the airlines’ largest variable costs, its pilots. The thought is that the airlines could find themselves more profitable and can use that profit for further growth, cost reductions, or rewarding their shareholders with higher returns on investments.

How could SPO affect airline pilots?

When one talks about SPO there has not been greater emphasis on any effect or area of concern, than the pilots themselves, and rightly so. At least in the short term, the group that stands to be affected the most in the airlines by the implementation of SPO are the airline pilots themselves. Below will discuss some of the possible effects on the airline pilot community over time.

1. The short term - No doubt in the short term this will have a dramatic effect on the pilot community with regards to the number of pilots hired. This may see a large number of pilots either losing their job especially in relation to the budget carriers across the world and regional carriers here in the United States.
2. The medium-term - In the medium-term if the implementation is ongoing successfully then even more pilots will be displaced from their original jobs in the airlines to other supporting/ancillary jobs within the airlines themselves or looking for other work outside the airlines. Primarily they would be looking for work flying professionally outside the airlines or work that allows them to still work in the aviation community but not flying actual aircraft. 
3. The long-term - As the medium-term rolls into the long term it is reasonable to conceive that the airlines are able to reduce cost enough and pass the cost-saving onto their paying customers, and along with other factors would see an increase in the number of travelers. This would require an increase in the number of aircraft needed to service those travelers. It itself will lead to an increase – while not necessarily back to the level before SPO - in the number of pilots being hired.

There’s something very important to note here. With the exception of low-cost carriers in some countries and the regional carriers here in the United States, airline pilots are highly unionized. Therefore, one can expect the unions to put up a bitter battle to resist SPO if they believe that it will reduce jobs for their airline pilot members. Their argument would be that up to half the pilot jobs would be lost with the implementation of SPO. This argument is a strong one. Notwithstanding this, there are myriad other factors that must go into making the decision whether or not the United States, in particular, will adopt SPO in the airlines. 

What impact, if any, would SPO have on the pilot shortage?

In the grand scheme of things with all other things being equal, the implementation of SPO will see a dramatic reduction in the demand for pilots. Essentially making the pilot shortage not as big of an issue for airlines as it would have been in the past. Because of the approval to operate a single pilot, airlines may simply re-train pilots for SPO without having to worry about hiring more pilots. Once more, it is very important to note that none of this will happen in a vacuum and there are myriad other factors that will be influencing these outcomes. For example, some airlines may choose to use multiple pilot operations for some time in the future because the cost of setting up and gaining regulatory approval for SPO may be higher than it currently costs to recruit, train, and operate with multiple pilots per flight. 

How might flight schools respond?

In a previous article “Flight Schools - The Reason For The Pilot Shortage?”, we mention that as a group, flight schools are very responsive to changes in the industry in relation to the demand for pilots. How flight schools would be affected and subsequently respond depends on the outcome of the implementation of SPO in the airlines. In the event that there’s a decrease in demand for pilots in the airlines, which may lead to a surplus of pilots in the industry in general then flight schools as a group will respond by shrinking in size down to a level that can be sustained at the new demand for pilots. In the event of increased demand for pilots, flight schools as a group will expand to take advantage of the newly increased demand for pilots. Note, however, that if the demand for pilots remains relatively the same, then there are no incentives for the flight schools as a group to alter their behavior, this includes current size or trends.

1. A decrease in demand for pilots - At the individual level, a decrease in demand for pilots would see primarily the stronger schools that are better run and are better capitalized surviving, at least in the short to medium term. Schools that are low-cost providers, the so-called “pilot mills” and those schools that are high-quality differentiator providers will be on the opposite spectrum in their respective geographic segments, and nationwide. While schools that do not necessarily have an inherent competitive advantage in their respective local market segment will struggle to stay afloat. That being said, because of the excessive fragmentation of the pilot training segment no one knows for sure who will be on these opposite spectrums, and who will be left in the middle. One thing is for sure, those schools that will seek to survive will use every means at their disposal to do so. They will adopt management/operations technologies and processes and equipment necessary to ensure the probability of survival is highest.
2. An increase in demand for pilots - If for whatever reason due to SPO there is an increase in the demand for pilots, flight schools will respond appropriately. The individual flight school will either seek to maximize its outputs by increasing its resource utilization by employing management/operations technologies as mentioned above or to invest in new capabilities and/or capacities to increase output that way. Needless to say, an increase in the demand for pilots would be a second stage boom for flight schools. Nonetheless, this also poses its own challenges. In a previous article, "The Pilot Shortage - A Challenge for Airlines, Possible Boom for Flight Schools”, we discussed these added challenges.

While there are some good effects that would come from the implementation of SPO, there are also some not-so-desirable effects. Further, still, there are unforeseen effects that can never be predicted beforehand. We know that those who would be impacted the most, either positively or negatively, are airline pilots themselves. We also know that there are ancillary groups and segments in the aviation industry that will also be affected. However, the extent to which these ancillary groups will be affected, again either positively or negatively is difficult to say beforehand. Here’s what we do know, the talk of SPO is in response to a challenge. Whether the root cause of this challenge is the pilot shortage or the thought that with current technology having two pilots is not necessary for the cockpit, it matters not. What matters in the end, is not primarily the reason for action or even the actions themselves, but the unintended effects of those actions, on other groups, in other places, and in other times, that no one could’ve predicted and planned for. So while we may act here in what we believe is prudence and wisdom we may inadvertently make the situation worse. As Thomas Sowell once said, “there are no solutions, they are only trade-offs”.

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