wasn't as bad as it could have been
I am always apprehensive when television makes an attempt to explain our business. The average viewer is unable to see the big picture and just zooms in on the accidents/incidents and assumes them to be the norm. Having said that I thought the program was interesting, and tried to raise some very valid points.
The use of native languages is a problem. The use of French/Spanish/Italian and Russian eats into our safety margins, and has killed people. There is only one common based communication language that all pilots (and ATC) are expected to master (can’t remember the number of words involved but it is not the complete English language). So what is the problem?? Just national pride I guess. You can dismiss this by telling pilots to learn each native language but that is being ignorant. Communication is a weak link in our safety chain. Even when English is spoken in a lot of countries it is hard to understand. You have to adjust your ears to all the different accents. Making things more interesting is the use of HF in large parts of the world and all these accents do not improve readability.
The use of ACARS will and has helped out. I have participated in experiments over the past four years in the development of Free Flight. And I thought that the BBC program sort of brushed over these advanced research projects in search of sensationalism (i.e. Sky is full; it is going to get worse). The capacity increase that these systems are capable off will deal with our growth for many years to come. Free flight has a dual advantage in that is will allow more optimum routings (doing away with our basic airway structure) and giving the aircrew much greater situational awareness. The last I heard the researchers will have the soft-hardware ready for deployment in 2007. It will mean a total revision of the way we work and interface with ATC, another topic though. It will not solve the capacity problems on the ground though and that is an even harder topic to tackle.
Regards, O.