Airlines should give pilots at least a three-day break to be with their families between time spent in quarantine facilities and long-haul flights, the Pilots Union Taoyuan said yesterday.
The union issued the statement twice — on Monday night and yesterday — to highlight the plight of pilots after a 61-year-old China Airlines pilot from Venezuela was found dead in his Taoyuan residence on Saturday last week.
An autopsy is to take place tomorrow to determine whether the pilot died of COVID-19.
The airline said that the pilot had completed a five-day quarantine and tested negative on the fifth, ninth and 14th days after his return to Taiwan.
Asked about the pilot’s death, Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), who is deputy head of the Central Epidemic Command Center, told a news briefing in Taipei that union representatives had said that the quarantine requirements for aircrew were “acceptable.”
However, the union said that the requirements have caused tremendous stress for crew members, pushing them to the limit mentally and physically.
“Pilots returning from long-haul flights must take polymerase chain reaction tests after having a mandatory seven-day quarantine in a hotel. They can be dispatched for another long-haul flight if they test negative,” union chairwoman Annie Lee (李信燕) said.
“Given this, crew members are in a continual cycle of flight assignments, quarantine and observing self-health management guidelines,” she added.
“This has prevented some pilots who don’t feel well from seeking medical attention,” Lee said.
The union showed reporters one pilot’s schedule for Oct. 1 to Dec. 1, on which there was not a single day when the pilot was not on duty, in quarantine or practicing self-health management.
The union also showed a screenshot of the Venezuelan pilot’s conversation with colleagues online, in which he told them that his daughter felt abandoned because she could not see him very often.
The problems experienced by the pilot before his death were not an isolated case, the union said.
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