Narrative:

This is just a safety concern I wanted to highlight. It has to do with maintaining visual contact behind our airbus aircraft at night; usually during landing but it also happens during takeoff. Their strobe lights are only activated when the aircraft is airborne; which results in the aircraft appearing completely dark on the runway. This is due [to] the strobe light switch having both an auto and on position. Our sops are to always leave the switch in auto. Therefore; when behind an airbus on landing; especially at night; once the aircraft touches down it completely blends in with the runway centerline lights as the strobes turn off - it basically disappears. Thus; the spacing is tight; we can never be quite sure if/when the aircraft clears the runway; which causes a safety concern. This also happens when behind an airbus on takeoff. It can really degrade situational awareness to others and in my case has caused more than a bit of concern when following at night. My suggestion would be for the airbus fleet to flip the strobe switch to on when cleared for takeoff; (instead of leaving it in auto) and to turn it back to off/auto when clearing the runway. This would ensure the aircraft remains visible to other aircraft especially at night. This would also align [company] with industry standard sops (just about all other airbus operators use the manual on/off strobe operation.) losing sight of aircraft when behind at night due to insufficient aircraft illumination. Suggestion for the airbus sops to revert to manual strobe light operation to enhance situational awareness and aircraft visibility especially at night during runway operations.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier Captain reported Airbus aircraft are difficult to see on the ground due to strobe lights only turning on after becoming airborne.

Narrative: This is just a safety concern I wanted to highlight. It has to do with maintaining visual contact behind our Airbus aircraft at night; usually during landing but it also happens during takeoff. Their strobe lights are only activated when the aircraft is airborne; which results in the aircraft appearing completely dark on the runway. This is due [to] the strobe light switch having both an Auto and ON position. Our SOPs are to always leave the switch in Auto. Therefore; when behind an Airbus on landing; especially at night; once the aircraft touches down it completely blends in with the runway centerline lights as the strobes turn off - it basically disappears. Thus; the spacing is tight; we can never be quite sure if/when the aircraft clears the runway; which causes a safety concern. This also happens when behind an Airbus on takeoff. It can really degrade situational awareness to others and in my case has caused more than a bit of concern when following at night. My suggestion would be for the Airbus fleet to flip the strobe switch to On when cleared for takeoff; (Instead of leaving it in Auto) and to turn it back to Off/Auto when clearing the runway. This would ensure the aircraft remains visible to other aircraft especially at night. This would also align [Company] with industry standard SOPs (just about all other Airbus operators use the manual on/off strobe operation.) Losing sight of aircraft when behind at night due to insufficient aircraft illumination. Suggestion for the Airbus SOPs to revert to manual strobe light operation to enhance situational awareness and aircraft visibility especially at night during runway operations.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.