Quantifying automatable checklist items on a commercial flightdeck

Abstract

In-flight non-normal events can be rather taxing for a flight crew. Numerous tasks, often competing for attention, need to be handled adequately after which, the best plan of action for the remainder of the flight needs to be determined. In the light of recent developments towards reduced crew operations, the demand for reducing workload has become apparent. This requires us to rethink the role of the pilot, which to the authors perspective is mainly one of a flying and flight plan manager. System management is a function that can be assigned to automation. Automation on modern plane often already monitors systems more accurate and faster than pilots can every do. However, in this study we explore the potential checklist step reduction if, the automation will go one step further. Namely, automatically execute reconfiguration steps that do not affect flight characteristic. In total, 39% of the checklist items are potential candidates for this new automation. Average checklist size can be reduced to 4, compared to the current average of 6.5 items per checklists. This result does not provide us with an estimated time saving. Although, the result seems promising to reduce the workload on the flight crew. This exploration can be followed-up by a study to estimate the potential time savings. Besides this improvements can be made to reduce the length of the informative statements and implications on the flight plan can be presented in a more efficient manner.