Pilots May Delay Atlantic Flights

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 16

Pilots May Delay Atlantic Flights

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, March 11.

The 1966 annual conference of the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations today decided on a course of action likely to cause delays, diversions and increased operating costs over the North Atlantic.

In January the International Civil Aviation Organisation agreed on a measure designed to allow more aircraft to fly the North Atlantic during peak periods at heights over 29,000 ft.

The pilots’ view is that with the present navigational aids the reduction of lateral separation over the North Atlantic from 120 to 90 nautical miles constitutes a danger to air safety. The federation is I instructing its members to reifuse to fly with the reduced safety margin. Captain J. Bartelski, the federation’s deputy-president, said it would take about three weeks for the decision to be circulated to the 27,000 pilots in the federation.

He said pilots believed that navigational errors could cause high-flying jets to stray into each other's air corridors under the new rule.

Captain Bartelski, of K.L.M., the Royal Dutch airline, said the decision would cause hold-ups on the ground and make refuelling diversions necessary.

“If a pilot is flying from, say, Rome or Zurich across the North Atlantic to New

York during a peak period and is told to fly with the current lateral separation he will decline and ask for an air corridor of 120 miles. “If he does not wait for the higher air corridors to clear he will operate at a height beneath 29,000 feet, which is uneconomic for jets. “This would necessitate a refuelling stop at Gander, Newfoundland, that would not normally be necessary.” He said that any pilot carrying out the rule and falling foul of his airline company would receive the full support of the federation.

Captain L. Arthur, of 8.0.A.C., spoke of “bloodymindedness in high places” over the 1.C.A.0. ruling. He said: “The situation is made more intolerable when it is known that a highly probable solution, satisfactory to all concerned, is available.” He said the solution was a navigational aid “omnitrack.”