Air travel has become a frustrating, unpleasant experience for many passengers. Aggressive overbooking policies and unforgiving scheduling have made people, both passengers and my fellow pilots, feel as though travel has become an exercise in endurance.

And recent disturbing incidents that burn into our memories and make headlines across the country drive home a worrying message: Airlines seemingly don't care about their passengers.

As the president of the Allied Pilots Association, which represents the 15,000 pilots who fly for American Airlines, I can say that we understand this frustration and feel the same way. As airlines have squeezed more passengers onto each plane, they have also scheduled pilots for more and more flights, reducing opportunities to adequately rest, which is vital to bolstering the margin of safety.

Customers who may be left behind by early closing of boarding doors and rushed departures should know that pilots are also feeling the time crunch on the other side of the cockpit door. Pilots don't want delays any more than passengers do, but a top-down, dogmatic approach to scheduling has resulted in added pressure on pilots and missed flights for passengers. And that's just one example of how things have changed for the worse.

The pilots of American Airlines are advocating for a set of principles that we believe can reverse a troubling trend in the skies by humanizing air travel. After all, it affects pilots, flight attendants and passengers. We're very proud to be leading the way.

As pilots, we have passengers' backs every day. We work hard to provide a safe, reliable and pleasant flying experience, and we strive to uphold and advocate for these principles day in and day out. We are on that airplane with our passengers, not at a desk in a corporate office. Our hope is that by urging the embrace of these principles - long-held values that our pilots have prioritized for generations - we can help make air travel a little more decent.

Safety is a pilot's first priority during air travel. To us, safety encompasses much more than just conducting the flight itself. That's why we're fighting to eliminate dangerous fumes from airplane cabins, why we continuously collect and analyze data to prevent incidents -- data that show it's essential for safety that pilot scheduling allows for rest and readiness, and why the Allied Pilots Association devotes more than 20 percent of member dues to furthering aviation safety.

The flying experience should also be reliable. Passengers should know that when they buy tickets, they will get where they are going on time and not be forced off the aircraft or left behind due to overly aggressive booking and scheduling procedures. Similarly, pilots need to have reliable schedules that make sense and protect rest time.

Fighting fatigue is on the National Transportation Safety Board's "Most Wanted List" of safety priorities. This also includes ceasing harmful scheduling practices such as forcing pilots to fly longer hours to meet airline schedules, known as pilot pushing. Other scheduling actions can be so aggressive they cause pilots to time-out, that is, meet the regulatory limit of time a pilot may work, creating flight cancellations.

When the unexpected happens, pilots and flight attendants must be empowered to make decisions that keep passengers safe and comfortable. An airline's policies are important and should be followed, but not at the expense of common sense and basic passenger needs. This means more than doing things right; it means doing the right thing. Only an empowered workforce can make that call, and pilots are often in the best position to do just that. A culture of empowerment that enables pilots and crew members to make the right decisions for passengers is essential to humanizing air travel.

Ultimately, in the sky, pilots, flight attendants and passengers are in this together, and we all want the same thing: a safe, reliable, comfortable travel experience.

As pilots, we're accustomed to leading. Many of us have served in the military, and we all have extensive experience in a demanding, safety-sensitive work environment. We are proud to take up the mantle of humanizing air travel. We hope others join us. But for now, let it be clear where we stand: with you.

Capt. Dan Carey is president of the Allied Pilots Association, which represents the 15,000 pilots who fly for American Airlines. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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