Safe Landing

Safe Landing is a group of aviation workers campaigning for long-term employment. We do this by challenging industry leaders to conform with climate science and reject dangerous growth. As pilots, cabin crew, airport staff, aerospace engineers, factory workers etc., we have a unique insight into industry functions. What we see goes against our ethos of putting safety first and deeply worries us.

The projected industry growth, fuelled by the temptation of returning to ‘business-as-usual’ and misleading technical solutions, is unrealistic. If flying remains cheap, unconstrained and doubles, as projected, every 15 years, aviation will take up over a quarter of total global carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. This situation is compounded by the non-CO2 impacts of flying which are yet to be accounted for. We’re very concerned about the economic risk to aviation workers' livelihoods if the planned growth fails to materialise due to depleted resources, climate breakdown and ecological collapse.? With increasing awareness of these crises, we expect public pressure, legal claims and litigation to accelerate more stringent climate regulations in the sector. It appears to us that industry leadership lack foresight of this threat, or are deliberately avoiding it and the inevitable consequences - this continued short-term thinking is problematic for long-term job stability in the industry.?

We demand that the question of job security, not maximising short-term profits at all costs, be put front-and-centre of any discussion on the expansion of the aviation sector. We want an industry that is sustainable in the long-term, not one still being propped up on false assumptions. These assumptions are likely to fail us again and lead to a fresh round of redundancies later this decade. We need a just approach that puts workers’ first during the necessary transformation of the industry.

As employees with industry insight, we challenge the reality of technical solutions such as electric, hydrogen, biofuel, and ‘e-fuel’ flight. It’s vital that we don’t mislead ourselves and others. These and market-based measures such as offsetting will not reduce the emissions in our sector in the crucial time frame of 10 to 20? years. We want, and need, to protect ourselves from unrealistic expectations that may benefit shareholders in the short-term but will destroy our job security, and our very planet, in the medium-to-long run.

We love the aviation industry and the positive impacts it brings to various societies. Most of us still fly or work in aviation but others were forced to leave due to moral dissonance and eco-anxiety. We want to change the industry so that all of us can go back and reclaim pride in our work. For this, we need an industry that is honest about the science and conforms with it.

We invite our colleagues from the industry to join the discussion. We don’t claim to have all the answers but we want to create a space where we can reach answers together – a space of collaborative learning, support for each other, where science is respected rather than tweaked or hushed and where more innovative policy ideas (e.g. Frequent Flyer Levy) can be heard. We want to assume agency for our very own future while having the global impact of preserving the Earth for ourselves and future generations. Together we can steer the aviation industry towards a Safe Landing.

If you're working in aviation and would like to get regular updates or join the movement, we welcome your input - please visit our Telegram Broadcast Channel or email info@safe-landing.org to join our mailing list. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can find details on the pinned message at the top of the Telegram chat. We wish to ensure the safety of all of our members whilst engaging in these necessary discussions.

www.safe-landing.org