Max Tow
The alert issued by IFALPA also included the European Cockpit Assn. (ECA) - not certain of this but I don't recall the Int'l Federation having been joined by other pilot labor organizations in issuance of prior bulletins about urgent safety-related issues or matters.
Regardless of that smaller point, if you were in charge - officially - of IFALPA, would you not take the most strident and definitive position, consistent with the facts as they reasonably appear to be at that time, in your initial public statement about the incident? IFALPA (and ECA) certainly are aware of the difficulties involved for mobilizing meaningful, actual, concrete action against entities or countries who violate important safety-related procedures and provisions. Aren't the interests of pilots best advanced and protected by taking the strongest (reasonable) stand to begin with, hoping to influence the several next phases of responses by civil aviation groups on the international level?
Article 55(e) may or may not have been relied upon previously by ICAO Council for instituting an investigation; if it has been relied upon, the situation is not one this SLF/atty recalls. This is not to claim that the Council's action yesterday will lead to adequate, or even partially adequate, solutions. I'm not sure there's even a consensus at the Council or in the broader civil aviation community internationally about how to define the problem at this time. Is it applying leverage (also known usually as "sanctions" though leverage has heavier meaning) to force release of the persons removed from the passenger cabin of the aircraft? Is it something intended to "teach Belarus a lesson"?
Not shrugging at the expressions of cynicism - about whether anything real can or will be done. At the same time, if one agrees this situation is unprecedented either in its severity, or methods deployed, or both, then cynicism can wait. The IFALPA-ECA statement has a ring of seriousness about it, IMHO, and this warrants endowing the Article 55(e) process to be conducted by the Secretariat with a measure of confidence. If you have heard the SecGen give a speech, and especially if you've heard the SecGen take Q&A after such a speech, perhaps you'd agree that any process this particular SecGen will conduct about a matter of such seriousness will also be a very serious and focused process. (True, a new SecGen takes office soon, but then there's something about "legacy" kicking around the big office building in Montreal.)