All too often, it seems like airline employees are unwilling to speak up when they witness something that shouldn’t be happening, in order to protect their colleagues. So here’s a nice story of that not happening — both pilots of a SWISS plane had too much to drink at a layover hotel. The flight attendants noticed this, and reported them to the company, and their claims were correct.
In this case, the two pilots of the plane reportedly drank significantly more, and closer to departure, than they were legally allowed to. The rest of the crew observed them in the hotel, noticing they were “clearly intoxicated.”
Not only did the pilots not follow the rules, but they clearly also failed to realize their condition and own up to what they did, so they attempted to report for their flight the following morning, rather than declaring themselves unfit to fly.
As a result, the flight attendants reported the pilots to their supervisor, and their condition was confirmed. A SWISS spokesperson stated that “the indications were so specific that we had to question the pilots’ fitness for duty,” and “the two pilots were taken off duty and replaced at the crew hotel before their shift began.”
As a result, the two pilots have been suspended, with the airline confirming “the relevant departments are currently investigating the incident,” and “until this is completed, the pilots in question will not be deployed on flight duties and will therefore not be conducting any flights.”
SWISS (rightly) pats itself on the back for this incident
A SWISS spokesperson explains that this incident demonstrates “our safety mechanisms are working: employees took responsibility and reported their observations. We acted immediately and applied the established procedures.”
The airline emphasizes how this safety culture helps the airline “identify and eliminate risks before they impact flight operations.”
Honestly, this is exactly the right take. In a company with so many people, you can never control everyone, and there will always be some bad apples. It’s especially concerning that in this case both pilots decided to drink too much — clearly they figured that if they were in “the same boat” when it comes to alcohol they’d be fine, since they wouldn’t report one another.
But this is exactly how a good safety culture is supposed to work, where other crew members aren’t afraid to share their observations when they notice something wrong. Seriously, a vast majority of the time when we see a story of an intoxicated pilot, it’s somehow airport staff who report the person’s condition.
I find it questionable whether no other crew member suspects something while they’re in the shuttle to the airport, going to the airport, etc. But I imagine there’s a culture where you don’t want to report your colleague, and where you’re worried that your observation might be wrong, and that you might be the one that gets in trouble.
So credit goes to the SWISS flight attendants for immediately reporting what they saw, and to SWISS for having good procedures in place surrounding these kinds of incidents — this is what a functioning safety culture looks like.
Bottom line
Two SWISS pilots had too much to drink on a Geneva layover, and did so too close to departure. Despite that, they attempted to show up to work the following morning. Fortunately some flight attendants working with them saw this, and reported them to the company.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
