Commercial Airline Pilots Rusty From Time Off Due To Pandemic

Here is a story that I found interesting in the sense you don’t know what you miss until it’s gone. Since the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed and even halted global travel commercial airline pilots say they are out of practice.

I’m not kidding. Some senior pilots who have flown for over 20 years have never had 3-4 months off from work. Typically when a pilot takes a leave of more than 90 days they have to take a refresher course. The reason they have to take the course is that their skills diminish with inactivity.

In a recent report, pilots acknowledged after returning from being off due to the pandemic they were not as sharp as they thought. One incident that was more serious was a plane that landed without permission because pilots were overwhelmed by turbulence. The pilot wrote in the report they “forgot to obtain landing clearance.” Several other pilots reported drifting from their assigned altitude which could cause a catastrophic event.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic airline travel has decreased by 45%. Some pilots have cited this as the reason for the mistake or error in their incident reports. No airlines were named in the report by NASA and all identifying information was removed.

To read more click CNN