Most of us love to read a book during a long flight but that’s an activity reserved for passengers. While you might think completely reasonable to prohibit pilots from reading books on a plane, it might surprise you to learn that pilots have quite a bit of downtime during their flights, especially on long trips.
Depending on which airline the pilot works for, many pilots are not allowed to pick up a book in the cockpit, but the same rules don’t apply if they choose to read a newspaper.
The reason being, books require more attention and time to read than newspapers, which are filled with short articles that don’t take as much time to process.
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It’s thought that the more time it takes to read a book could lead to a pilot becoming distracted while in the cockpit, which has been an issue in the past.
In 2009 two pilots lost their licences after missing their landing destination by 240km because they weren’t paying attention.
“As an Airbus A320 captain myself with over 30 years in military and commercial aviation, I personally find [reading during a flight] extremely non-professional and akin to poor airmanship,” one anonymous pilot said on a professional pilot’s network.
“Even our chief pilot does nothing to discourage this behaviour. Some try to start reading even while we’re still in climb mode!” he said.
But another pilot said that reading during a long flight could actually help keep pilots occupied.
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“Since everybody reacts differently to books / newspapers, and not every book is the same, I think you can’t differentiate between what people read. As long as the job gets done, I think it’s only a good thing to try and stay awake somehow,” another anonymous pilot said.
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