Liaison pilots in Spain • Aldo Espinosa was born 33 years ago in Santiago de Cuba to a German mother and Cuban father. He lived in Havana until the age of 14 and then moved to Germany. Apart from being a pilot, he is also an aeronautical engineer and he piloted Boeing 757s and Airbus 330s for Thomas Cook UK before getting his Airbus A320 family rating with Lufthansa. Between 2009 and 2010 he became a liaison pilot working as a link between Lufthansa and Aena, and began participating in the Enrique Carré forum for pilots and air traffic controllers in Barcelona, where the idea for the first familiarization flights in the cockpit first arose. Since January 2011, he works as an assistant to the operations manager and, among other tasks, he coordinates the work of all Lufthansa liaison pilots. “Our goal is to establish a sincere and constructive communication with air traffic controllers that enables us to ask if they have any criticism, doubt or advice related to the way we operate. As a result, for example, we have already been able to inform our fellow pilots about the details and reasons for certain ATC procedures in Madrid and Barcelona, which had previously been a source of confusion.” • Oliver Meier was born in 1984 in Hamburg (Germany) to a Mexican mother and German father, so he has grown up with two languages and has both nationalities. He obtained the Airbus 320 rating in early 2008, and since 2010 he works as a Synthetic Flight Instructor conducting initial simulator training and introductory flight lessons. His command of Spanish and his preference for flying to Spanish destinations were his passport to becoming a liaison pilot in this country. “My goal is to help enhance the understanding and relationship between air traffic controllers and pilots, so that together we can provide safe, smooth and precise traffic management services, working in a pleasant, friendly and satisfactory professional environment.” • Nico García Vogel, 24, was born near Stuttgart in southern Germany, but has lived for over twenty years in Castelldefels (Barcelona). He obtained the Airbus A320 family rating in late 2008. In Frankfurt, he met Aldo Espinosa who, considering Nico’s interest and previous experience in Spain, offered him to work as a liaison pilot in this country, together with Oliver. “Our goal is to establish a direct and personal contact with minimal bureaucracy in order to improve our working environment, with the help of everyone involved, in every possible way.”
enough and soon we taxied to runway 25L and joined the DALIN2W departure procedure on course to DIBER. One of the most interesting things you can do when flying in the cockpit is paying attention to pilot communications with ATC of different nationalities and different accents; by listening and monitoring the TCAS at the same time, you can guess the decisions that ATCOs make. Being aware of how close you are to an aircraft that is flying 1,000 ft above or 5/8 NM laterally at the same altitude is also very instructive. It really is impressive and gives you some idea of how easy it is for pilots to determine whether or not they are clear of another traffic on calm and fine weather, or what they probably feel when they have no information about another traffic that is climbing or descending on a converging course. Our flight to Frankfurt went smoothly and, during approach, I learnt that aircraft are instructed to fly a zigzag pattern until the moment when they are cleared to leave the pattern and intercept the localizer. Of course, from the moment we left cruise flight and started descent, I did not ask any more questions in order to not disturb the pilots, I just watched the activity around me and the preparation and setting of the different configurations of the aircraft. In Frankfurt we stopped for an hour, boarded new passengers and loaded up fuel. The captain told me that Lufthansa had recently outsourced the load & balance service which is now being provided from Turkey. He called the company for the necessary arrangements. We used the time to talk about the current trend of reducing costs in our industry and the risks involved. Next flight was from Frankfurt to Warsaw, where we completed a VOR DME approach. Interestingly, I noticed a much higher workload in the cockpit during this approach, with the pilots constantly checking minimum altitudes and switching on the autopilot on different descent legs. Again, the touchdown was flawless. Once the aircraft was attached to the jet bridge, Oliver asked me if I wanted to join him for an external check of the aircraft, and thus for the first time I set foot in Poland (only for twenty minutes). When I was close to the plane, I was struck by the size of the landing gear, the engines, and the aircraft hold, which had its doors open and was just being unloaded. After boarding the third set of passengers that day, we returned to Frankfurt. This time we made an intermediate stopover of more than two hours, so Oliver invited me to visit
ATC magazine / nº 70
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