New Delhi: In order to ensure an informal environment in the cockpit, Air India Express has directed its first officers to address the pilot-in-command (PIC) by their first name or simply as “Captain’.
The airline issued the circular referring to a 2018 incident in Trichy in which the aircraft did not meet the take-off performance and the wheels contacted the ILS localizer antenna and airport perimeter wall causing damage to the underbelly.
“It is proposed that in order to improve CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) and reduce Trans-Cockpit-Authority-Gradient, a more informal cockpit environment is required. This may be a generational and culture shift which has built up over the years and may take time to be fully accepted and reap results. However, as a first step, henceforth, First Officers shall address the PIC not as ‘Sir’ but by first name or simply as Captain,” the airline circular has said.
Commenting on the circular, Captain PP Singh, former Senior Vice President of Jet Airways and currently Head of Training and Standards at Nepal Airways said that the problem with the directive is that good practice has been adopted from the West but local corporate culture has not been taken into account.
“This is a matter of education and not the matter of passing orders,” Captain Singh told UNI.
Issuing the instruction, operations department of Air India Express said that while the causative factors brought out by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) are being addressed, the circular aims to target the breakdown of CRM in the subject incident.
