Our Annual Delegates’ Conference (ADC) is designed to allow our pilot leaders the space to consider important and emerging issues facing our profession and our membership.

This approach has worked really well in the past, and has resulted in the two main themes for BALPA over the last few years – Focus on Fatigue and nextGen.

Next week, on 2nd and 3rd November, our pilot delegates will gather near Heathrow to discuss and debate two main issues – pilot lifestyle, including the hot topic of pilot ‘burnout’, and Brexit.

In the ‘lifestyle’ piece, we will be acknowledging that pilots’ aspirations are increasingly away from simple pay rises and more on other issues, especially as we face up to the reality of what life under EASA FTL is like. We will be hearing from experts on happiness in the workplace, and academics who we’ve been working with to investigate the growing phenomenon of pilot burnout. And we will also be hearing from our in-house human factors and scheduling experts on how better rostering practices can help tackle some of these issues. Throughout, we will keep coming back to the practical question – how can BALPA drive that agenda forward and deliver for our members?

Considering Brexit, of course, will probably result in more questions than answers. No one knows exactly what lies ahead, but we do know for sure that there’ll be huge implications for pilots, for aviation safety, and for airlines, especially if we get it wrong. We’ll be considering those issues with help from Andrew Haines, the CAA Chief Executive, and other experts and specialists.

We’ll be closing our conference with an industry dinner and are looking forward to welcoming figures from across the airline sector as well as the Aviation Minister, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who will be speaking.

Annual conference is the most important date in BALPA’s calendar because it is the only opportunity for Company Council delegates, the elected National Executive Council members and HQ staff to come together and plan for the year ahead. We are hoping for another successful annual conference, which will set up the Association’s work on behalf of our members in 2017.  We look forward to seeing all the delegates there.