Race to the bottom

[desertbob]

Don't worry, we are not cost-cutting just eliminating waste. :}

1) Frog march hand picked pilots in for a review and surprise, surprise no one wants a pay rise after 6 years. Somehow only new hires get the 15% pay increase that is necessary to attract the new 'price of fish'!

2) Officially cabin crew get minimum 8 days off and pilots get 7 days off!

3) After 3 years for cabin crew, finally pilots get live leave!

4) Issue warning letters to engineers to work on days off then delete their overtime!

5) Threaten the head of HR and fire him twice because he's doing a lousy job recruiting the best of the best for the last 15 years. Incidentally, he is now the head of operations for Norwegian and has a penchant for Emirates pilots.

6) Terrorize fleet operations and have a SVP and a senior manager quit in the same month. No post holder for operations willing to step up so shaft a former chief pilot.

7) Leave suddenly available for pilots after 3 years of none. Genius banana management parking 60+ airplanes worldwide because of massive overcapacity. This is uber worrying.

8) 40 pilots a month quitting and out of 60 interviewed, 30 invited, only 3 show up for training!! Anyone willing to fly for double crossing, stealing, lying, 105 hrs a month, 7 days off, 10 days of leave?

9) Launch a Windows EPT even the authority are saying is a totally useless platform and will never get approval. Massive Li-ion batteries just to keep them going for longer than 2 hrs!

10) Ransack rosters with shared rest days, minimum rest between duties, turn arounds landing at midnight before leave, airport hotels only and roster 2 weeks of leave with 80 hrs of flying!

11) Bidding and swap system with so many mickey mouse rules nothing is legal!

12) The shiny new company portal references an original beta portal via links using Internet Explorer 1995! Where is my roster or email? :8

13) Training department now looking for 6 month Captains for 500 aed a training duty with brand new 2 stripe turboprop pilots! Does anyone else think this is going to end well? :eek:

Nothing to see here folks, just the total loss of faith on an ever larger group of people, first engineers only, then flight operations, now the whole company ...

You couldn't make this stuff up! From one of the finest airlines in the world to a laughing stock in 3 short years. I'm disappointed I tied my hopes to this sinking ship.

[Toledo]

Spot on Desertbob

[Vwon]

Its obvious which ME airline this is about, but are there actually 80 pilots per month quitting? :eek: Where is everyone going?

[KippaLippa]

You couldn't make this stuff up! From one of the finest airlines in the world to a laughing stock in 3 short years. I'm disappointed I tied my hopes to this sinking ship.

imagine how good would that feel if you joined three years ago....

KL

[Talparc]

actually all this crab started shortly after moving to the new EGHQ

[SOPS]

Its obvious which ME airline this is about, but are there actually 80 pilots per month quitting? :eek: Where is everyone going?

Home. For some anyway,because the time comes that enough is enough. Other jobs for others, 80 a month sounds high however.

[fatbus]

It is a rumour forum !

[CAYNINE]

7 days a month off rosters..... please show me I would like to see an example, just saying, it's a rumour network right???

[AirDemandPump2]

Comparing two re-ordered seniority lists one year apart, 248 pilots have left, an average resignation rate of 20.6 per month.

[felixthecat]

I have had quite a few 8 and 9 day off months. Fortunately no 7's ....yet

Had several months 2 days off, 2 trips back to back, 1 day off, 2 trips back to back, 2 days off....repeated through the month....

Super rostering !

[natops]

Caynine, ive got 8 days off , not more than 2 on a row for months now.

[sluggums]

And I'll wager the 'Live Leave' will fritter away to nothing...

[fatbus]

Fewer days off in the month for some means more ad hoc leave for others.

[motley flight crue]

And those with lots of days in the bank have been screwed over for years, hence leave in the bank. I'm taking my leave, need a 'lull' in my rosters for a while.

[LHR Rain]

Who would want to stay at or join EK in this environment?

[777-200LR]

LHR,

If everyone thought like you, we wouldn't be in this state

[EchoKilla]

Its obvious which ME airline this is about, but are there actually 80 pilots per month quitting? :eek: Where is everyone going?

Let's not get too carried away shall we? They are covering the balance - not sure how many departing but definitely hiring 16-20 a month. Just do a run on HRDirect and you shall see. Currently the 3 most popular jobs that are still getting budgets for are Pilots, Eqpt Operators & VPs

[Kamelchaser]

I think we're missing the point here. Regardless of whether the company is "covering the numbers" or not, one of the biggest issues is that we're replacing very experienced pilots with incredibly low hour newbies.

Check any crew on any flight on the roster system (if you can figure it out on the new portal), and you'll often see a crew with a brand new Captain, and a brand new FO. Often no-one with more than 6-7 years experience in the company. Those guys will in turn have been trained by many brand new instructors, and checked by many brand new TREs.

As long as there's bums on seats, our esteemed leadership keep blindly pressing on. They created this mess, and now no-one wants to accept responsibility for where it's all heading.

[allatp]

I think we're missing the point here. Regardless of whether the company is "covering the numbers" or not, one of the biggest issues is that we're replacing very experienced pilots with incredibly low hour newbies.

Check any crew on any flight on the roster system (if you can figure it out on the new portal), and you'll often see a crew with a brand new Captain, and a brand new FO. Often no-one with more than 6-7 years experience in the company. Those guys will in turn have been trained by many brand new instructors, and checked by many brand new TREs.

As long as there's bums on seats, our esteemed leadership keep blindly pressing on. They created this mess, and now no-one wants to accept responsibility for where it's all heading.

Wow, really scary. When is it going to be the breaking-point?, another accident?

[Fuel-Off]

you'll often see a crew with a brand new Captain, and a brand new FO. Often no-one with more than 6-7 years experience in the company

I think I might be looking at this too simplistically BUT, what difference is there between the example quoted above and what was happening say 10 years ago?Commands were 3 years at EK, so often enough there would've been a flight crewed with the most junior captain with the most senior FO which then just had 6 years company time between them at most.

Granted the experience requirements were greater, but I'm still seeing new crews with considerable experience who are ex-defence force, former captains still joining the ranks. Perhaps it's too easy to tar every new joiner with the same brush that they've just cracked 2000hrs.

Fuel-Off :ok:

[Kamelchaser]

Fuel-off...The difference is 10 years ago the guys doing commands already had a lot of experience before joining EK.

That's no longer the case in most cases, and hasn't been for quite some time.

[Vwon]

Out of pure interest, what's the upgrade requirement now?

[clear to land]

Fuel-off-nearly 12 years ago when I joined my sim partner and I had cumulative experience exceeding 22000hrs. My intake (of 6) had cumulative experience of 50000hrs-do you see the difference?

[BigGeordie]

When I signed up, at about the same time as clear to land, all 4 of my group had command experience and all had flown a widebody. All met the (then) minimum requirements for command at Emirates (apart from the 3 years in the company obviously).

There is definitely a trend here.

[glofish]

Simply read the incident reports. They reflect the sad state and it's home made by bad management, not by the individuals. Each and everyone of us would jump on the bandwagon, even with wheels falling off, if it meant a bigger and shinier jet and more money.
A few years back it really took more experience and a more thorough assessment to pass.
Today we play the game with mostly rookies, even the trainers have their first job. Any league in sports would eventually punish the owners for that.
EK with their kindergarten management seems to think they are above that.

[harry the cod]

Glo

I agree. Some of the recent ASR's are shocking, although the blame should not be placed entirely on management. Company culture is undoubtedly a concern but individuals must also be held accountable for some of these arse covering reports, otherwise why would so many of us find them cringeworthy and embarrassing? We work for the same Company after all, do we not? It would also be good to have the data from all of the most recent events and see if experience and age was indeed a contributory factor. Not for one minute do any of us assume high hours makes a good pilot. It doesn't. What would you rather take, 3000 hrs of good experience and a solid training background with a young sharp mind, or a 12,000 hr F/O who's worked with multiple different Companies and has never had a command? Fuel Off is correct in that we shouldn't generalise.

However the fact remains that experience levels have definitely reduced, not just in EK but throughout the industry. Two recent events, both subject to investigations by the UK AAIB, have involved young Captains, one aged 30, the other only 26. Both were Easy Jet. What about one of our own events where, for example, an incorrect turn occurred after take off with the autopilot being engaged at 80ft. 80ft! Why so damn early? Airmanship issues such as this will only get worse. Modern pilots today do not have the same healthy suspicion of their environment and equipment as those before them. It's not a criticism of the Y/X generation, merely an observation.They have been brought up and trained in an environment where reliability is indeed far greater than before, so they have less exposure to faults and failures. They do not possess a data base of previous experience or knowledge gained from these failures to apply a known template to solve them. We are training, and becoming ourselves, reliable system operators, not resilient pilots. We call them 'the children of the magenta line'. If we don't want them to blindly follow the magenta line, don't train them to do so.


On descent into home base and little traffic, VMC;


Cpt. "noises!" followed by Autopilot disconnect at 9000'

F/O "Oh...er...autopilot disconnect" As he promptly re engages it. :eek:

Cpt. "Yes, that was me, I disengaged it"

F/O "Why.....er....is there a problem?" Looking somewhat startled and confused. :confused:

Cpt. "No, no problem. I just wanted to fly it" as he disengages it again.


Pause


F/O "....But... we haven't even got our landing clearance yet!"

Cpt. :ugh:


Harry

[glofish]

Not for one minute do any of us assume high hours makes a good pilot. It doesn't. What would you rather take, 3000 hrs of good experience and a solid training background with a young sharp mind, or a 12,000 hr F/O who's worked with multiple different Companies and has never had a command? Fuel Off is correct in that we shouldn't generalise

Harry, i agree. That's why i wrote

A few years back it really took more experience and a more thorough assessment to pass

The problem is that today the assessment is done by the same children of the magenta. Let's see who applies to the advertised new recruitment job.

We, the older farts, might be guilty of only deploring the situation and not applying to such positions. Bu the balancing other (older, more experienced) voices in recruitment, training and fleet are mostly not welcome. We could stir the cheap pot and uproot some imposters. Not welcome ...... btdt