European aircraft manufacturer Airbus wants to install a potty-style toilet right behind the Captain’s seat on its flagship A350 long-haul aircraft in an attempt to eliminate the need to have two pilots sitting at the controls of commercial passenger aircraft at any one time.
The potty proposal by the European aerospace giant is part of ongoing work into what the aviation industry has dubbed Extended Minimum Crew Operations or eMCO for short.
Extended Minimum Crew Operations is a euphemism for single-pilot operations in which just one pilot is at the controls of a packed widebody aircraft during the cruise phase of flight.
The hope is that eMCO will result in attractive cost savings for airlines because on ultra-long-haul flights, there will no longer be a need to have three or four pilots operating on the same flight.
At present, pilots take turns sleeping in a special crew rest compartment while two remain on the flight deck at any one time, but under eMCO, one pilot would remain alone in the cockpit for up to three hours at a time while the second pilot is sleeping.
The proposal has, perhaps unsurprisingly, alarmed unions and organizations that represent pilots around the world, although advanced work on eMCO projects is going ahead undeterred and single-pilot operations could become a reality in less than five years.
There are, however, still some pretty big hurdles to clear. One of which is dealing with the fact that pilots are human and, therefore, have physiological needs just as needing to use the toilet or deal with menstruation.
The European Air Safety Agency (EASA) has been tasked with researching how to safely implement eMCO, which includes finding solutions to the fact that pilots might need to use the can.
Suggestions considered by the pan-European agency included asking pilots to deliberately dehydrate themselves before starting a lone shift at the aircraft controls, as well as requiring them to eat a high-protein, low-residue diet to mitigate the risk of them needing to defecate.
The agency also looked at other outlandish solutions like making pilots wear adult diapers, or equipping cockpits with disposable urine collectors.
Thankfully, the authors of the EASA study discounted all of these potential solutions, coming to the conclusion that diapers, special diets and urine collectors were “not acceptable nor feasible.”
Instead, EASA suggested that in the event a pilot desperately needed to use the toilet, they would need to wake up the second pilot, and at that point, the eMCO would be terminated.
Ending the eMCO early, however, could result in a situation in which the pilots are fatigued.
To address that issue, Airbus is now developing a proposal to install an open toilet in the flight deck.
“They’re going to get rid of that second jumpseat behind the Captain and put a toilet; think about that for a minute; that’s no pilot ops,” pilots at the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) board of directors meeting were recently warned.
“So when you have to relieve yourself, there’s no one at the controls. They are even proposing a comms panel at that toilet so that you can look forward at the control and instrumentation. If ATC calls, well, you can answer it while you’re resting on the can.”
If Airbus gets its way, eMCO could be ready to test on its A350 model as early as 2027. Within the next five years, single-pilot operations could be introduced on freighter Airbus A320 aircraft.
ALPA has joined forces with other pilot unions to oppose eMCO with the battle against Airbus, Boeing, and the airline industry stepping up a gear in recent months over fears that aircraft manufacturers are secretly pushing to become the first to bring eMCO to market.
“ALPA, along with global pilot unions, are united in opposition to this concept and have made it a priority to maintain at least two pilots on the flight deck to ensure the safety and security of all airline flight operations,” the union commented earlier this month.
“No one understands better than a pilot that when an issue arises in flight, it is the pilots who are responsible for achieving a safe outcome.”
