EK Roster satisfaction

[kcar]

I'm asking this to B777 people in the top two bid groups for the September roster:
Did you get any of your preferences, that you can confirm was due bidding? (i.e asked for a specific destination and got two)

[donpizmeov]

I think the profit Jagger said it best "I cant get no satisfaction"

https://youtu.be/nrIPxlFzDi0

[flyinthesky]

2nd top bid - B777 FO. Pretty senior. Got the square root of cock all on either request or preferences.

A sensible email is being constructed to highlight the inadequacies and inequalities. Will it achieve anything? Of course not but it'll help me feel just a tad better!!!

[Sheikh Your Bootie]

Bizarrely enough Habibis, middle bid(yeah I know not top 2 bids) and I got for me at least almost a dream roster :ok: Lots of deadheading, 20 hours.. no turnarounds, 3 preferences I got awarded, not specific flights, 5 day block off as a preference :D:D

Not gloating, but am surprised for sure. :ugh:

SyB :zzz::zzz:

[MMIDifferent]

Habibis this is to keep you away from the young new GR2's who will do as I tell them, and stay away from your wealthy married cockpit.

[lospilotos]

Top bid, senior FO in my group. Had to use up all my 5 requests to secure a string of days off, of which I got three

Didn't get any of my preferences, basically quite the opposite..

[speedbirdhopeful1]

Please please email the bid guys then fleet. Every time I talk to them they don't seem to have many other complaints. I know it's because most of us have given up and know it will make no difference but it drives me mad when they say they didn't get many complaints and therefore it must be my incredibly high expectations of getting ANY generic layover preference in the US or EU that's the issue..
Bring back the old system, worked fine if you invested a bit of time to bid.

[halas]

Second bottom. Every preference for five of the same days off in every combination. Got it! Sweet.

Two day turns, one ULR, two augment plus 12 days off with three days reserve at the start.

halas

ps: This never happens!

[Wizofoz]

My September roster is VERY satisfactory......

[lospilotos]

My September roster is VERY satisfactory......

You are leaving?

[Monarch Man]

Bottom bid, bid for days off only, block of 6 days, couple of turns all day time and about 70hrs. :eek::hmm::eek: clearly the bidding system works (sarcasm)

[SOPS]

70 hours sounds good, Monarch.

[Uplink]

The profit Jagger also said "you can't always get what you want...but if you try sometime you find you get what you need"

By the way roster satisfaction is an Oxymoron !

[Fire Ball XL5]

Top Bid... got everything I asked for... next month... not so sure! :-(

[Wizofoz]

You are leaving? :ok::ok::ok::ok:

[donpizmeov]

All the best to ya Wiz.

[The Range]

Just curious. How can you guys keep putting up with all this crap.
Enough is enough. Or it should.

[allaru]

83hrs..got the string of 5 days off I asked for plus 3 of the 4 flights....and then the wake up call came for my next flight

[Rotating Bacon]

seriously, it got even worse since I left 3 months ago, just accept the fact that it will never get any better, they come up with all those rules to screw you, just move on

[777boyindubai]

Wiz, All the best to you and yours for the future!

[Wizofoz]

Cheers Guys

[fliion]

Wiz

Was a gentleman...

On here
In the sim
On the flight deck and
In the bar.

All the best to you.

[Panther 88]

Where are you heading, Wiz?

[GMC1500]

Capt, 2nd top bid, got two VIE layovers that I asked for.
Also the long MNL, which is now a three man crew, finally.
DAC layover, the day trip, which used to be a turnaround.
Have to give credit where credit is due, these are improvements.

[kcar]

They've disregarded the preferences for 777 FO. I've looked at other top bid guys that I know ask for a couple of destinations that's not particularly popular, destinations that you normally would end up with 2-3 per month in top and second top.
They got none.
A simple roster search shows that practically no destination has been given more than once to any FO.

[donpizmeov]

Are FOs allowed to bid?

[halas]

Fark! Just finished reserve. 105 unfactored hours in 30 days! Never normally do more than 65.
Anyone else in the the same boat?

Will be controlling this months hours more closely :E

halas

[SOPS]

105 hours on reserve. Short of crew? But on a serious note...105 hours the way EK operates can simply not be safe, or good for a pilots health.

[adel]

Oct bid closes on the 7th of Sept,
EK Schedule published on the 8th!!!
Go figure, instead of management extending bidding for atleast a few days longer to give us a chance to improve our life style, they just blatantly do whatever they want...
But again, weren't we recently reminded bidding is not contractual !!!!

[motojet]

Oct bid closes on the 7th of Sept,
EK Schedule published on the 8th!!!
Go figure, instead of management extending bidding for atleast a few days longer to give us a chance to improve our life style, they just blatantly do whatever they want...
But again, weren't we recently reminded bidding is not contractual !!!!
Not sure what you are looking at. Bidding closes on the 10th.

[Big Coight]

Question from an ousider, do A380 crew generally get a better roster than 777 crew?

BC.

[Cloud Bunny]

I think the swap freeze starts on the 7th.

[adel]

Cloud bunny,
Is absolutely correct, should read those operational notes more carefully, thanks

[Kapitanleutnant]

Adel....

It's ok... that stuff happens when you're fatigued out at 105 hours month after month.

K

[moneyhoon]

Regarding swap freeze. Does it start on the 07th or effectively earlier as I keep getting stuck on the 'Please wait validating business rules' page?

[delorean79]

Will they press the button today?

[Monarch Man]

Apparently, the answer is yes :cool:

[littlejet]

did anyone here get more than 4 in a row by bid?

[TCU LUX]

Max 2 days off in row.

It's absolutely horrendous on the 777.

:yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk::yuk:

[donpizmeov]

Passengers have been saying that for years :)

[TCU LUX]

:ok: True

Seriously. I for one am starting to hate this job. Had much more fun in work & life flying 737 low cost - and never had this feeling of a zombie like existence.

[palm]

Max 2 in a row for the entire month, this job is getting better and better...reality is far more horrible than forum's gossip. 13 years in this Cie and I just can't believe what we are accepting from this &é&§&@&§§§ management....the only good part of it is that I won't regret my very very soon resignation.....

[bigdaviet]

So has anyone noticed an improvement? Quite a few schedules have been reduced in October so it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect...

[Monarch Man]

Read somewhere else that the 4th LGW has been binned, things must be pants if they are cancelling Londonistan flights, even if it is Gatport.

[halas]

Middle bid 6 days off in a row.

90hrs :bored: but not bad trips, no ULR and only two turns that are not at night!

halas

[Cloud Bunny]

Read somewhere else that the 4th LGW has been binned, things must be pants if they are cancelling Londonistan flights, even if it is Gatport.

Interesting, mate of mine has 3 of them of them on his roster (I bid like fury for it but obviously being top bid naturally I didn't get a sniff) however going on the EK booking site you can't book. It only shows the usual 3 flights. Has this been a very late decision to bin it??

[alwayzinit]

Stunning rostering this month, augmenting prior to a long leave:ugh: Why not a handling trip? Just dumb IMHO.

[DCS99]

Read somewhere else that the 4th LGW has been binned, things must be pants if they are cancelling Londonistan flights, even if it is Gatport.

These very late route cancellations will p**s off the small number of passengers who did book.
They expect a full-service airline to honour its schedule.

I know every airline has to cancel routes, but this year the short notice (eg. I think Panama was 2 weeks) will severely hack off the punters.

Look at the date on this

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/269004/emirates-shelves-planned-4th-daily-london-gatwick-flight-due-oct-2016/

And it's been available for Sale for months

http://www.theeksource.com/emirates-announce-4th-daily-london-gatwick-service/

Enough. Back to topic

[Cloud Bunny]

Stunning rostering this month, augmenting prior to a long leave:ugh: Why not a handling trip? Just dumb IMHO.

Ha! I had that last year. Augmenting to Japan, 3 weeks leave, next 2 trips after leave augmenting Japan, augmenting MLE turn. Clueless. It was quite a funny conversation when I called to ask if they thought there might be any issues with this? "Ummmmm.....no Captain"
I left it to them and then the evening before the Japan trip after leave I get a call to tell me I'm now operating. Only took them the 3 weeks I was on leave to figure that one out. Surely with all the limitations built into the rostering system they could have included one about flight crew recency requirements.
Can't believe how late they have left it to bin the LGW. It would appear this place is running on headless chicken mode at the moment. No foresight, no real planning, knee jerk reactions on an almost daily basis.

[natops]

Middle bid
Lhs 777
95 hrs
9 days off
Absolutely nothing I asked for.

Thank you EK, for pushing me to look for another job.

[Rotating Bacon]

many are looking but nobody does the walk

[alwayzinit]

natops, pretty much sums the situation up.
My applications went in yesterday...................................:ugh:
Yet the company have it within their power to stop the rot, but choose, for whatever reason, not to.
I would love for someone on the 9th floor to explain how, if a pilot flies his allocated share of the roster, why oh why can they not be allowed a roster to commute?
Just about every other expat staffed airline manage to provide this lifestyle enhancer, yet EK choose to continue with the proven failed current model and the exodus from both seats continues to accelerate.
And they call themselves "managers":ugh:

[Panther 88]

natops, pretty much sums the situation up.
My applications went in yesterday...................................:ugh:
Yet the company have it within their power to stop the rot, but choose, for whatever reason, not to.
I would love for someone on the 9th floor to explain how, if a pilot flies his allocated share of the roster, why oh why can they not be allowed a roster to commute?
Just about every other expat staffed airline manage to provide this lifestyle enhancer, yet EK choose to continue with the proven failed current model and the exodus from both seats continues to accelerate.
And they call themselves "managers":ugh:
"Managers"? Managers are doing exactly what they're supposed to do. Maintain the status quo. Managers do not create change, they manage. Now leaders! That's a different story.

95 hrs, two ULRs, one turn, etc. 15 days off. Not too bad really. Very very generic bid. Bid areas only.

[alwayzinit]

P 88

Indeed, though the Status Quo, is the continued deterioration of T+Cs and the growing snowball of leavers.

So "Good Job" then!

[Kapitanleutnant]

Panther 88...

Obviously you're not being productive enough. I'd expect a call to visit the chief on your being a "lazy pilot" within a week or two perhaps?? :-)

Kap

[fatbus]

777 complaints sounding very similar to the 330/340

[Yorkshire_Pudding]

Didn't bid for anything and got a reasonable roster again second month running.

[Flyboy_SG]

45hrs flying 50 credit and ten days off in a row ! 2-3 days off in between trips.

[thatwasclose]

Credit where due . Boeing , high bid got everything , everything I asked for . A little shocked but happy .

[5star]

thatwasclose. what are you smoking?

I was top bid this month and I am quite senior now (for what its worth anyway) : I got ONE trip I asked for in the whole month. The worst roster ever with lovely layovers in India I never asked for and nearly 100 hours block and a massive 9 days off.
All I bid for was UK, EU and S-A and all I got was 1 nice trip and the rest f* all!

This month all I bid for was 2 days off. Guess what: I'm working what else did u expect....

In the old days I could have easily been happy with this in a bottom month, but nowadays :mad::mad::mad:

[Payscale]

Very Happy With ny roster

[BANANASBANANAS]

As the 'new normal' appears to be that pilots now get their rosters 2 weeks before the start of the next month, it does beg the question;

Why didn't they always do it?

[Calmcavok]

2nd top, 1 (low) request and no preferences.

[Visual Procedures]

I loved the pat on the back they gave themselves for awarding 1 day off before leave for most (not even all) that had leave in the April roster.

Nice one guys, a real achievement :rolleyes:

[Donovan]

hello,

General question, would EK consider an FO applicant with a total hours of 1800 and 1500 on narrow body jet MTOW above 20T?

Appreciate the comments.

Thanks

[keepitrealok]

Donovan,

The fact that you are asking that question despite the WEALTH of information saying stay the heck away from here means EK won't just consider you, they've already got your course date inked in.

:ok:

[Schnowzer]

Second top, pretty senior. Got one request I asked. Didn't ask for Russia or China oddly enough but got them both. Oh joy!

[Calmcavok]

I also have leave in April with 1 day off before. Woop!

They say they plan to continue with this, well gee, thanks! Mediocrity achieved and to be maintained.

Maybe they've forgotten that 5 days off before leave used to be achievable?

[Jetkopite]

Well I forgot to bid for April and was dreading the roster but to my shock it came out ok with 11 days off and 85hrs and trips that I bid for in my top months?????

I am happy but I dont understand as in top bids I get 8 days off with nothing I asked for and pretty senior...

Maybe ill forget to bid again next month but still cant wait to get the F@@k out of here..:ok:

[I Claudius]

87 hours, 10 days off and no India.

Oh, top bid and did not bid.

[go46ball]

B-777. Left seat. Top bid. 9 days off. 97.5 hours. Bags are being packed. Enough is enough.

[glofish]

Out of last 3 months, first 2 months NOT ONE preference awarded, this month 1! Bid help tell me I could not have done more to get preferences awarded!
I then look at eswap and find the flights I bid for were given to other people.

Exactly the same here.
The situation is despicable. That is the only word that comes to my mind. :ugh:

[Calmcavok]

Same same. Preferences should be seniority based, at least then there'll be some kind of system, rather than the "global" view within the bid group.

As it used to be before, n'est ce pas?!

[Stjuk]

2nd top, pretty senior FO.
Got one request and no preferences - increasing to 10 is worthless.

[5star]

Divide et imperar....and we know that only 1 guy is responsable for the mess we are in...
especially on the boeing, the combination of ULRs wih minimum rest combined with turns and layovers to the subcontinent resulting in rostercompression with less than 10 days off is unsustainable.
There is not a single reason to stay if you're on the tractor....

ooh yes, i will definately remind anyone I know considering joining about this aspect of the job. U really have to be out of your mind to join on the boeing.

[Spoogie]

Bottom Bid FO777 - works for me. Got what I wanted plus what I didn't want.

[felixthecat]

The extra request and preference merely allows them to publish statistics that show greater bid 'satisfaction' and appear to be giving more of what we want. If they gave us 50 requests and preferences they would be able to show nearly 100% 'satisfaction'.

Smoke and Mirrors

[Divertnow]

Very Happy With ny roster

How many hours and days off or leave did you get?

[Divertnow]

Bottom Bid FO777 - works for me. Got what I wanted plus what I didn't want.
Are you new at EK? Bottom bid and you got what you wanted. Did you bid for double Dohas and night Islamabads?

[Divertnow]

Terrible roster for 3 months running. Bring back the old bidding system please. This one doesn't work, and it's making people leave.

And cost cutting doesn't work when other departments can't stop spending.
Emirates unveils new Real Madrid A380 decal - Emirates 24|7 (http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/emirates-unveils-new-real-madrid-a380-decal-2017-03-17-1.649804)

The old system worked well (before they tweaked with it and put in too many restrictions).
I wonder if that 380 would ever be dispatched to Barcelona? It would almost be like painting the Spinnaker tower red and white 😂. I'm sure they know what they're doing.

[keepitrealok]

Left Seat. 14 days AL and 63hrs flying. Anybody who thinks that is reasonable needs their head read.

[BANANASBANANAS]

I can certainly see your point and have much sympathy for it.

However, consider the junior guys who are currently (in theory) sharing your roster pain. If senior guys are going to get more of what they bid for then logic dictates that the junior guys will get even less of what they bid for. All fine in theory but a worsening of the qol for the junior guys (all the junior capts will be bond free) may well be enough for them to quit and that will just make life even worse for everyone that is left.

I agree with your sentiments but they need to be applied imho only when we have sufficient pilot numbers. At the moment, despite lack of easy access to a seniority list, I think it is evident that we are very short of numbers.

This airline has reached, and gone thru 'critical mass' in its manpower problems imho and it is going to take something much more radical than incorporating seniority into roster bidding to fix.

[BigGeordie]

Difficult (if not impossible) to replace experience is walking out of the door every day. They need to think of something to keep it here and clearly the 3% 'discretionary' increment isn't going to do it.

If you know your roster will never ever get any better why stay?

[felixthecat]

Solve the recruitment by solving the retention.... treat us like humans not machines. If you don't the slippery slope is going to turn into a cliff....Though why I even write on here I have no idea. The powers that be obviously read and look at PPrune but pay exactly zero heed to what is staring them in the face. Once apathy sets in and people feel they have no part in the company and are not valued they look elsewhere. Like a stale marriage, the rot sets in and the unhappy partner looks elsewhere. The other airlines can smell the easy pickings and are swarming to Dubai to pick up experienced pilots that have been trained at EK expense. The mentality here is astounding at the moment.

EK will slowly turn into Gulf Air and Etihad/Qatar will take the mantle, till greed and poor management gets the better of them too.

[BANANASBANANAS]

The indigenous mentality tends to be not to bother maintaining and looking after anything. Rather, it seems to be a case of waiting until something is broken and then fix or replace it.

Time to fix attrition!

[Laker]

I have been seriously hacked of with this farce of a new roster system having recently got nothing I bid for. After discussing this at length, having heard that the roster planning manager apparently said repeatedly that seniority cannot be applied to the roster system "even if tasked" at the last forum, I was shown some of the stuff jeppesen puts online about the system and was interested to see this question in the blurb:

For senior crew the strict order must remain. Is it possible to award bids differently for junior crew?
You can use different assignment principles for various crew groups. For crew members with many service years the assignment of bids can remain very strict. For crew members with very few years of service it is possible to let seniority have an impact, but not be totally dominant.

Also there was this:
Equal distribution can be combined with preferential bidding in seniority order.

Have a look here http://ww1.jeppesen.com/documents/aviation/commercial/JeppesenCrewRostering.pdf

So correct me if I am wrong but the roster / planning bloke is a deceiving, misleading,psuedologist as seniority can be used in the preferential bidding system and seniority can also be applied throughout the system to keep the experienced guys a little happier? Yes I'm sure he's a decent bloke (:* ) and he's doing what he's told......however.......

Now if others have a look and concur with this, lets make sure they know it at the forum, write in etc. Seniority needs to be applied and not only for Captains, there are some pretty senior FOs delayed by age / aircraft type who are getting awful rosters as well!

Hope that all makes sense!

Of course Preferential Bidding can be programmed to honor seniority. That's exactly how it works at all the union airlines which use PBS bidding. The problem is that arrangement requires more pilots (less profit). As long as the planes get from point A to point B I don't think the top management at EK cares about 'roster satisfaction'.

[LHR Rain]

Do they care about pilots leaving?
As I said earlier even the Canadians are leaving Emirates. That should serve as a wake up call to the management.
When you pissed off the Canadians you've really gone low.

[Jetkopite]

I agree with above seniority should be respected to prevent them loosing all the experience left and right which is a dangerous game. In my opinion if you are in top 2 bid groups and senior there should be no excuses for not being able to write your own roster.

This issue has to be brought up at the next few roster meetings and forums..

[felixthecat]

Its very difficult to argue seniority with no seniority list !

[Trader]

The rotating bid system work very well under previous systems (until they began to interfere with it).

There is no need to go to a strict seniority system. However, the rotating system is now broken so everyone is miserable. If they would fix it so that it worked properly you would get essentially what you want in top groups and far less in bottom groups. If you are senior then you might get almost exactly what you want in top bids and some fairly good bottoms bids (due to relative seniority in your group).

[FcU]

5 bid groups. Bottom 4 rotate. Top 20% have earned the right to get what they bid for. Block of days before and after leave. No more 5 day blocks of "burn" leave. Discuss

[felixthecat]

Rosters are rubbish as we all know. My beef isn't where I go so much as what time I have off to enjoy with family. Until lifestyle makes an appearance then nothing changes, be it Milan, Rome or Dakar and Lagos, I want time to enjoy life!