AAR invitation for an informal meeting

[flareflyer]

Roumors are that some coleagues received an email inviting them to attend a meeting with AAR............ It should be on march 22nd..........
It would be very interesting to know what he will say ............

[fatbus]

have to sign a non disclosure

[Cloud Bunny]

have to sign a non disclosure
Really? Top secret meeting with AAR - doesn't sound ropey at all. How did they select "the few"?

[glofish]

How did they select "the few"?

It's the ones who have provided a blood sample two weeks earlier ...... :ugh:

[jack schidt]

I heard he was inviting all the known "controversial" PPRuNeRs for a mass sacking :p

J

[ExDubai]

heard he was inviting all the known "controversial" PPRuNeRs for a mass sacking :p
And what will happen with Harry?

[GoreTex]

shall I withdraw my resignation? I am sure it will get much better now ;-)

[Panther 88]

is it just for those who might have submitted resignations?

[Rotating Bacon]

it's for friends of the regime only

[sluggums]

Don't think so, as one of the invited pilots posted on the yahoo group asking what it was all about.

[Eau de Boeing]

I believe that AAR may have just discovered Proon in the last week

[Kapitanleutnant]

I personally highly doubt that AAR was the instigator of this manoeuvre. Just not in his mindset. Was more than likely "told" by Sir TC to do this... or at least find out why everyone is leaving in record numbers.

This reminds me of the time the head of the cabin crew held meetings last year with the group and they voiced their frustration and sometimes anger from what I'm told at the head... only to be told effectively, this is how it is.

IMO this is just going to be window dressing and a few more crumbs to the minions to make it appear something "may happen" down the road.

Think of it... the most dyer thing are rosters right now and that simply can't be fixed with the amount of flying EK want to do.

But... here's hoping to actually having something good coming from this!

Best of luck guys!!

Kap

[ekpilot]

Waste of a Day OFF. Just so they can say that after consultations with pilots they are happy to announce ... Bla bla bla bla !
Keep recovering lazy pilots!

[fatbus]

they need to show a commitment to reducing hours and improving pay
80 hr then productivity
15% pay raise
42 days vacation a must
and back off on the warning letters

[THRCLB]

Agree with Kap ..... It's just a little show ....they know what's wrong ...and they know how to fix it ...but they Won't coz it will cost their big bonus cheque .....

[BigGeordie]

Anybody remember the survey they sent out a year it so back? The one nobody ever saw the results of and which brought about no changes at all? More of the same I suspect. Interestingly the results of another survey, the 10 best companies to work for in Dubai, have just been published. (DHL top again for the third year running. Emirates nowhere on the list again.) Could be connected?

[Talparc]

Maybe AAR is now scared of the German Pilot Union to undisclose all the

illegal practices to the rest of the world.

[nakbin330]

Anybody remember the survey they sent out a year it so back? The one nobody ever saw the results of and which brought about no changes at all? More of the same I suspect. Interestingly the results of another survey, the 10 best companies to work for in Dubai, have just been published. (DHL top again for the third year running. Emirates nowhere on the list again.) Could be connected?

EK not in the top 20,

[lowstandard]

I hope the invited feel comfortable knowing it will be a non punitive open forum to discuss their honest feelings and give any suggestions to enhance working conditions.

That propaganda picture of those British kids with Saddam Hussein in the early 90's comes to mind.

[in freedom]

The following may or may not have helped to inspire AAR to conduct the upcoming meeting. At least it may serve as some food for thought. Earlier this year the report below was filed and acknowledged by EASA and the FAA. The report was also shared with the Office of HH Sheikh Mohammed with the explanation that EK’s pilot shortage is not due to global factors but home made. From there it was delivered to the GCAA. As far as I know the FAA is actively investigating.


“…as a former Emirates pilot I want to report the lack of regulatory oversight and effective labour laws in the UAE. Emirates operates its long-haul fleet with unprecedented "crew productivity" at a crew factor near 7. That is impossible to match for any major Western airline. The issue reported in the WSJ on April 9, 2015 is still not rectified. This is a ticking time-bomb for flight safety and crew health. I highly recommend that you require a rolling 12 month duty record for any Emirates crew member operating in your jurisdiction, covering flight, simulator and ground duties as well as deadheading. The UAE can not be trusted to safely regulate aviation.

The main takeaway of the following detailed information is:

• Emirates are deliberately recording false check-in times for all of their pilots on all flights. Because any duty limit or rest calculation is based on check-in time it is simply impossible to say whether an Emirates crew is operating legally or not. This is not just a problem for individual flights but also has knock-on effects on the following required rest periods, next allowed check-in time and duty totals.

• When the fact was made public the GCAA as regulatory authority promised to regulate it properly. The opposite happened. They covered this up for Emirates because they are by no means independent. Western authorities shouldn’t trust them blindly to regulate Emirates. Please see the U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Report for 2014 to understand that independent control of a government-owned business is impossible under their legal system. The Chairman of Emirates Airline, Sheikh Ahmed, leads the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority but more importantly he sits on the Board of Directors for the GCAA as a Board Member (see GCAA website).

• Emirates are also using other shortcuts and bullying of their employees to make their pilots operate at an unhealthy workload level. On 03 June 2015 Emirates Captain Jim Jacobs (54) died from a heart attack at JFK when boarding the flight to Dubai. He was exhausted and wanted to retire that year.
• As a result of these illegal practices Emirates are achieving great savings by operating at a crew factor of 7 where flight safety dictates a crew factor of 11 in similar operations at regulated Western Airlines (e.g. AirFrance A380 fleet). Emirates presently operates about 250 aircraft (number from open sources) with about 3,850 pilots (from EK seniority list as of 12-2015), some of whom are in training, in management or on sick leave.


1 False Check-in Times

Every Emirates pilot is forced to report for duty significantly prior to the legally registered reporting time. In other words: Emirates is extending their pilots’ flight duty times by registering false reporting times for each and every flight.
Pilots’ flight time limitations are obviously safety relevant and in the case of Emirates Airline the operations manual is approved by the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) in the United Arab Emirates. According to the Emirates Operations Manual the Standard Reporting Time for pilots is 1 hour before a flight. So a pilot is legally required to report for duty only 1 hour before the flight departs.
But the operational reality is very different. Emirates pilots are picked up at their residences by a company chauffeur and arrive at the Emirates HQ at least 1 hour and 45 minutes before departure. The timing of the company transport is set by Emirates and can not be delayed by the pilot. The pilot will then proceed through Passport Control and Customs and he will check in his baggage. He will then conduct a preflight briefing with the other pilot on his flight. The flight crew briefing ends at 1 hour 25 minutes before departure as documented in the Flight Crew Departure Timeline. After that the pilots will join their cabin crew and proceed to the aircraft.
So the pilot has completed all of the outlined tasks at 1 hour and 25 minutes before the flight and yet his reporting time is registered at only 1 hour before the flight. Why doesn’t Emirates adjust the Standard Reporting Time? Even Emirates Cabin Crews’ Standard Reporting Time is set at 1 hour and 30 minutes but Cabin Crew Flight Time Limitations are less limiting than those for pilots.
I am attaching a sample Flight Crew Departure Timeline (Part of the Briefing Pack). It is an example of a 2 Pilot Crew Turnaround. EK 544 and EK 545 Dubai-Chennai-Dubai. B773, A6-EMR on April 25th 2014.

Pickup by Company Car 00:30 Dubai Local Time
Flight Crew Briefing End 01:20 Dubai Local Time
Reporting Time 01:45 Dubai Local Time
Scheduled Departure 02:45 Dubai Local Time
Actual Departure DXB 02:57 Dubai Local Time
Actual Arrival MAA 06:37 Dubai Local Time
Actual Departure MAA 08:02 Dubai Local Time
Actual Arrival DXB 12:06 Dubai Local Time
Scheduled Arrival DXB 12:30 Dubai Local Time

After the WSJ reported this issue on April 9, 2015 Emirates removed the internal document “Flight Crew Departure Time” from the process. But that’s the only change.
“The GCAA’s Mr. Al Balooshi said reporting requirements for duty time should be “black and white” and begin when a pilot is expected to report for work and finish when his or her last flight taxies into the gate. Emirates said it abides by state-approved flight-time limitations. “(WSJ article).
This is clearly not the case. Please see the following evidence:

Attachment 1: Flight Crew Departure Timeline for EK544 on 25 April 2014

Attachment 2: Pilot Transport Pickup Schedule

Attachment 3: Internal Memo ‘The Waves’ Flight Crew responsibilities page 6

Attachment 4: Signage at the Crew Terminal outlining that the combined Pilot & Cabin Crew briefing finishes at Standard Departure Time minus 80 (20 minutes before the pilots’ legally registered check-in time).

Attachment 5: EK Pilot Recruitment Video @5:00 runtime. Quote: "I get picked up 2 hours 30 minutes before departure.” http://youtu.be/A53VRz_KhnY

Attachment 6: Emirates OM-A Section 7

Attachment 7: Wall Street Journal Article, April 9, 2015

Attachment 8: Internal email by the Manager Regulatory Affairs telling the related parties in Emirates to remove the Flight Crew Departure Timeline document from the briefing pack, 22 April 2015


2. Further Issues

Here are some of the other issues that I can also back up with evidence and further witnesses:

• Pilots are bullied not to report sick. They receive warning letters if their annual sick days go above a fairly low threshold and may not receive the annual bonus. The first thing is usually to withdraw the right for self-certification of sickness, meaning you can’t call in sick for a single day without a doctor’s certification (not very practical giving the nightly duty schedules).
• the process for reporting sick fatigue is a lot more complicated than just calling sick.
• the Emirates Clinic is overcrowded and understaffed with doctors. Long waiting times are the result.
• the process for cabin crew to report sick is completely prohibitive now. They must drag themselves to EK HQ at any time of the day or night where they only get the sick note but no treatment.
• there is no proper East-West time-zone curfew applied to the rosters
• on Ultra-Long-Haul flights there is now a factoring for 'stick time', meaning you only get half the credit for a flight if you are on the augmenting crew that didn’t do the take-off and landing. This has implications for the following rest times etc.
• No credit for time in a certified full-flight simulator. That’s another 22hours of flight duty per year that just disappear from the records.
• No proper leave allocation. Out of 42 contractual leave days only 30 days are awarded and then many times in forced blocks of 4 days in a row which would have been OFF days anyway.
• No credit for ground training, simulator training, dead-heading or leave days. An EK pilot will fly max hours in a vacation month. I had this several times myself, doing 80hrs block in 14 work days.
• no documentation or limitation on radiation anymore. ULRs over the north pole are daily business.
• the overall results are just shocking rosters year-round without any breaks, most of it through the night and through many time zones. People are getting sick up to incapacitation and death on duty.
….”end of quote.



Let’s throw in some business figures. The EK crew factor is about 7 and that is including a lot of ULRs. Lufthansa long-haul crew factor is 10, AirFrance 380 crew factor is 11. Both do LR but no significant ULR so should actually require less crews than EK.

Assuming that a crew factor of 10 is required as calculated with German accuracy by Lufthansa then 3,900 EK pilots are doing the job of 5,570 required pilots. In other words you are permanently working 43% overtime.

From a cost perspective that equals annual savings of 1,670 pilot salaries and expenses which can be conservatively estimated to be at least $200k per pilot per year. => more than $ 330 million savings per year.

From a revenue perspective Emirates Airline achieved $24.2 billion in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2015. That is about $ 6.2 million of annual revenue per pilot. The 43% overtime productivity in the total annual revenue equals $7.3 billion. Per pilot it equals about $1.9 million.

The Airline’s 2014-2015 profit was stated as $1.2 billion. So you see that an additional expense of more than $300 million for proper pilot staffing would indeed have a big impact. Let's not even think about the $7 billion of revenue created by your generous overtime work.

[glofish]

So EASA and FAA know about it.

I guess they are reluctantly "looking into it" now, meaning nothing will happen until something happens.

[White Sausage]

Glo, I'm not so sure about that. If (God forbid!) something bad is gonna happen here, they cannot say anymore they didn't know about all the bad things here. Wishful thinking maybe but perhaps a start...

[tomuchwork]

@infreedom

Shocking.

I am soooooooo glad I decided to join Ryanair and did not went for the EK interview. Had really bad feelings about them and the TO's and your post just confirmed that.

Horrible. And very sad. How to kill a once very good airline for pilots.

[jack schidt]

Simply put, when has there "ever" been a meeting with pilots when it has benefitted the pilot community? I was there at the last meeting over 10 years ago (Meridien) which was never repeated. The pilots were always courteous and yet when honest questions were asked, the issues were always avoided. There has never been another meeting since (until now), to save face I would guess?

Meetings by management are for their benefit so that they feel they are addressing the problem right at source and can say they have been "managing". The problem then is that it takes a day of someone's free time to attend to be told what is mostly a meeting of one sided information flow. They might listen but rarely ever act on any suggestions from the pilot community. In all the meetings I have ever been to, concerns are raised and the issue never tackled or addressed from on high.

If this meeting was genuinely for the benefit of the pilot community, it would have been broadcast to let everyone know, not just a "select" few. I have my suspicions about the reasons or outcomes of such a meeting.

J

[helen-damnation]

Slight thread creep but the GCAA may be under more scrutiny IF some of the rumours about FZ rostering and practises are a factor in this:
Dozens feared dead in Russia air crash - BBC News (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35850167)

[PMASHA]

How many of you have actually met AAR? Are you speculating based on rumours? Those of you who are called for the meeting, why don't you take the opportunity to get to know him first before making any speculations. May it is just an opportunity for you to open up and have discussion about what you are moaning about on this forum. Man up!

[fatbus]

Man up and get a warning letter
Man up and fear loss of profit share for 2 years

[BLOGGSON]

It's tempting and very easy to assume that nothing will come of this and that he may just be about to deliver some kind of collective rebuke, to be disseminated by those in attendance. On the other hand, since this is I think, almost unprecedented, perhaps there is just an outside chance that he wants, or is being forced, to find out what really gripes us, directly from the horse's mouth.

Even in the case of the latter, probably nothing will happen, not immediately anyway, but if they are beginning to sense the reality that pilot discontent is a genuine threat to the business, maybe, just maybe the seeds of change could be sown here.

I too am generally pessimistic and cynical when it comes to the company and its ethos, but as has so often been pointed out, nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever change by just moaning about it here.

This is an opportunity for the invitees to gauge his attitude, and hopefully put across, in a professionally considered manner, those genuine problems that are causing such unhappiness.

Bloggs.

[halas]

When AAR stepped on to that podium years ago (Can't remember, 2005/6?) at his first pilot meeting in the auditorium in the new sim building, the whole atmosphere was toxic.

As he discharged his bile on the large crowd that came in on their day off (One of many in those days), as was encouraged by fleet management, many shook their heads in dismay.

At it's peak it was noted how all the cadets in the first row got-up and walked out en masse in disgust.

As he flailed and spluttered in dismay an adjournment was called.

Most left the auditorium during the break, as did l. Why stick around for round two of this sh!t!

Apparently this was not to his liking on his return to the podium and, as a result, we became thieves for not working hard enough and lazy as a result.

Back back to the point.

No. I have not met him.

He presented himself to the pilot body that day as a Sacha Baron Cohen character model. You know, the type that makes you cringe and wince at every thing that he says and does.

Do l want to meet him? No.

halas

[nolimitholdem]

I won't be able to make it to the meeting that day. Due respect Bloggson, I'm not quite as confident in the considered, professional approach any more. Could someone just punch him in the face for me and maybe video it with their phone?

Thanks.

[fliion]

Halas nailed it.

FYI there is a European skipper in our hood telling people that he just resigned - so effective three months from this week - and was asked into a meeting and offered 100kAED to stay until Nov as the summer crewing situation is a now a crisis & will not be sorted until the Fall.

He took it.

I'm hesitant to write these rumors - but the source it came from was no Alan Pardew.

[Rotating Bacon]

I and a few others resigned recently and nobody offered us anything to stay, its BS

[Fearless Leader]

Yeah... I call BS on that as well.

No one called or emailed me either.

100000 dhs is offer. That equals
24000 euro
27000 USD

Hardly worth it.

[THRCLB]

Halas .. I was there ...AAR. won't do any thing because he is the accounble person who personally lead us into this situation in the first place ...after that meeting he never called for another one because he knew nobody will show up ..and that will really look bad from him .... And the cycle repeat it self ... Why it's only selected few ...must be people apparently happy and he would use them to show the higher management (STC and HH ) that it's all taking care of ....

Sadly I saw the news today ..and read STC email which his only concern to protect the brand ...( no one interested in us or our life style til the day they park the AC or we sadly make the news ) ...

Please be safe protect your self ..

[BeCareful]

Can't have AAR lose face...

[helen-damnation]

Don't think that's for a public forum schweinhaxe.

If you want to go, write to AAR's secretary and ask to be included.

[Fearless Leader]

Sorry helen-damnation,

But who made you the internet policeman?

This is already in the public domain. You can't change that now.

[fatbus]

Chill mate !

[PMASHA]

If we put our requests forward respectfully there is a chance we could be heard. Let's be positive and behave respectfully. At least he is taking the time to meet some of us. Guys attending the meeting, please be respectful and put your point across in a reasonable manner. :D

[sluggums]

Wishful thinking I'm afraid PMASHA. AAR couldn't give two sihts about us.

[Kapitanleutnant]

Spot on Sluggums!!!! I think most at EK realize this. I'll say this again... AARis not doing this to help any crew. Not his M.O.. Me thinks there was a higher authority involved.

[fatbus]

Are these meetings actually happening?
If they are AAR will have told he will conduct, not his idea or choice.
Lots of rumours , pilots thrive on rumours in the ME. Why, because they can't afford to do anything else. But remember everyone wants to come and live in Dubai!

[120feet]

First thing that needs to be changed is AAR
Then maybe, sincerity on behalf of the company could be considered.
30% pay raise is a minimum to bring pilots back to where they should be.
Credit for training including distant learning, and 380 home study. Both hours and pay. Credit for vacation and reserve days. Bidable Hard off days during reserve so simple things like Children's birthdays and parties can be planned. 12 days off a month. Minimum. Schedules out by the 15th. So you can plan for simple things like Children's birthday parties.
All lines built to 80 hours, everything else goes into open time. Those that WANT overtime get it. Trips not picked up in open go into call out pay. 2-3 ALT tickets per year if company breaks your vacation down into 4,5,6,7 unusable blocks. Just an Outsider looking in. IMHO These would ALL be non-negotiable. I am not lost on the irony of the last statement.

[Wh1sper]

Agree on all the above 120.
Basings in Australia, Europe and North America will sort it all out. EK knows that, but still refuse.
I would stay for the rest of my career if I got offered a base away from the sand.

[pumpkin]

Absolutely. Home base. More rest. More rest. More rest. What were my kid's names again?

[allaru]

Basings/reverse rosters ain't gonna happen ...end of story.

The best to hope for would be flexible rostering options with extended days off, part time, and so on.

[fatbus]

Even that's going to happen, show me the money!