The third edition will be held on December 1

After the vivid polemics of the fall of 2009 between pilot unions and management, reflection on the strengthening of the safety of the flights had taken a more serene turn in Air France. Under the leadership of Eric Schramm, appointed in November 2009, at the direction of air operations, several working groups themselves are set to work in a business project named "Path", with already first concrete benefits.

"Never the company was especially mobilized around security issues", welcomes Eric Schramm. A commission joint proposals, open to all trade union organizations, thus saw the day last February, who has already given birth some changes in the internal functioning of air operations. At the same time, external mission, bringing together French and foreign experts has already made its first recommendations, pending the final report in December or January. A safety monitoring Committee also established the Board of Directors of Air France. And every six months, a foundation of security are organized at le Bourget, which bring together between 300 and 400 drivers for two days of reflection. The third edition will be held on December 1.

The approach is not only introspective. "We went to see 62 companies, including a low cost", says Eric Schramm. Since last may, Air France thus changed its stabilization rules governing procedures for landing, by adopting those in place at easyJet. Objective: to reduce output of runway landing. Since then, we found a very clear improvement", provides the leader. Air France is also inspired by British Airways to reform training of pilots, which will be more based on the experience of the company. "It is a three-year site, which will begin by the A320 sector," he says. Treatment of feedback, effective in Emirates, interested also Air France. Return the L' du L' expérience est un point particulièrement important, insiste Eric Schramm. "of L' experience is a particularly important, insists Eric Schramm." When I came to air operations, "air safety reports" 1,000 reports of incidents in flight, Editor's note waiting to be processed. "Another trail of work and subjects of comparison: the role of the co-pilot, practices of overshoot or the drafting of security documents.

First recommendations

For its part, the external mission has also produced its first recommendations, such as the establishment of a dashboard for the safety of flights, for the Board of Directors. Or even the establishment of a procedure for analysis of steering errors, method Line Operations Safety Audit (Losa) from the University of Austin Texas. "Air France voluntary pilots trained in this method 30 comply two months the conduct of the flight, to identify errors, explains the Director of air operations." We make all error: 7 per flight hour, according to the statistics of Losa.

These changes do not always without engagement. A pilots Union and slammed the door of the joint commission to protest the decision to replace technical documentation in French Air France by the documentation of the aircraft manufacturers. But Eric Schramm does formalizes. "It feels that the move, there is a change in mindset, says - it.". It is kind of the situation where when an MD-11 of Lufthansa crashes in Riyadh, it is an item in the press, while when there are toilets bites on a Paris-Rio of Air France flight, any press talking about it.