Chinese pilots told to stay away from vices this new year

China’s Airline Pilots Association has issued a wacky letter that is recommending its members to stay away from prostitutes, gambling and drink ahead of this year’s Lunar New Year holiday. The open letter which was published on an aviation website goes on to state that it expects all chinese pilots to keep up the safe image of its pilots who have flown 8.46 million hours last year on over 3.6 million flights with quite low accidental rate.

It is interesting that an airline pilots association has to issue such a letter to rein in some of the bad apples who are bringing a bad name to the community. The association also careful to note that not all its members are involved in such activities and its only few of them who have been caught in such situations.

Conclusion

On one hand you would usually expect that such notices would typically be issued by the state aviation regulator but given that this is China most of these kind of items are handled via non-official sources given the sensitivity that is around this topic. With the upcoming new year which tends to be the most busiest times for the airlines and every other mode of transport available in China, the agencies are going all stops to make sure that the process remains trouble free and any such incident which can bring a bad name to the country can be avoided.