As Seaman Staynes said, the simplest and most striking fact is that work-life balance has completely disappeared from the job - there is none. The little time that is now spent at home between trips is used trying to recuperate, and there is no quality time left for the individual or their family due to exhaustion. The working conditions have reached a position of being unsustainable for anyone who wishes to remain fit and healthy. It is impossible to fly ULRs (many with 24hr layovers) and then be physically and mentally fit to safely fly again 48 hours later, especially for a night turn. The flying limits - targets - used in the region are not realistic, and have no regard to a person’s physical and mental requirements. I watched many pilots who are exhausted, and just ‘managing to get through’ a flight, as opposed to working efficiently, and indeed learning how to work better.
There are a plethora of other issues that need fixing, but won’t be. Following are issues that, when tallied with work-life balance, has pilots leaving in numbers that haven't been seen before.
When Annual Leave is promulgated, some form of training is invariably allocated immediately upon completion. This is unacceptable and shows complete disregard to what Annual Leave was designed for. Annual Leave is a time to be free of all things to do with work, and when training is the first duty after leave this is not the case! The need to study for PPCs or a Line Check will become the focus of at least the last few days of Leave, and will more than likely be on the pilot's mind during Leave. This is totally unacceptable. Does an office worker spend their holidays having to study for a potentially career changing -or ending - event when they return to work?
Despite the massive increase in hours and duties the pay has failed to keep up, especially considering the cost of living in Dubai. The Productivity Payments are in no way an adequate reimbursement for the free time taken from the pilot. The practice of allocating 14 days AL and then flying for 60-70hrs in the remaining days is another issue. By that ratio, a pilot is flying 120 hrs for the month, but as there is no pro-rata of AL for the month will receive no Productivity Pay. This is an appalling practice because firstly the Company is compressing the roster for the remainder of the month (which they won't allow you to do if you tried to get days off!), meaning the pilot is even more exhausted than normal, and secondly because there is no financial reward/payment for it.
While discussing Annual Leave, the habit of allocating 5 days of AL then flying maximum hours for the rest of the month means that the Annual Leave has merely been reduced from the pilot's entitlement with no benefit. As an expat airline, Annual Leave is almost sacred to an employee in order to return home and visit family, or utilise to travel efficiently. When they are receiving, generally, a maximum allocation of only 14 days, this does not allow the expats who come from North America, South America, or Oceania to travel home and enjoy their time off. This also needs to be considered in the context of only 1 ALT being allocated per year - pilots are supposed to receive 42 days Annual Leave (I never did, 7 years in the airline) - and so for the remaining days allocated in small blocks there is no confirmed ticket to return home or travel. This is an abject failure for an expat airline.
The Company has a Punitive Culture. End of story. No ifs or buts, it is a punitive culture. The only employee group in the Company who accepts responsibility - the pilots - are the ones who are themselves treated with a lack of respect for the position, and receive the greatest threats. I lost count of the amount of times I was spoken to disrespectfully by staff and quite literally treated with contempt. These are not an isolated occurrences, and it is a reflection of how management treats its pilots - the other employee groups have noticed it, and decided that they too can act the same way. It is a disturbing aspect for the Company - the constant threat of job loss for a mistake is not a way to promote a safety-conscious culture in an airline; it does the opposite. Fatigue is not something that is caused just by the rostered flying, it is also from the constant - perceived or real - threats from management regarding job security. Here we have the conflicting situation of 2 pilots who are entrusted with an expensive asset and 400 passengers (an even more expensive asset!), and yet are treated like teenagers.
The company view regarding Sick Leave is just another problem with the culture. To be confirmed sick by a company doctor, have a large number of days off because of illness or surgery but then be forced to attend a meeting to discuss ‘productivity’ shows how disconnected the Company has become from the reality of a good working culture, or how far removed they are from being an Employer of Choice (Bahahaha - nice survey, what happened to the results?) The working environment is now resulting in people becoming sick at a higher rate than they should - this is what should be the focus of a company that wants to be a good employer. Sending automatic emails when a sick leave threshold has been crossed is a poor practice.
The rostering system is a mess and total failure. This is not because of the system that is being used, but because of the number of unwarranted conditions that are placed into it which are destroying it’s ability to perform. ‘Success’ being defined as having only 1 of your bids awarded and the remainder being constructed from anything is not ‘success.’ The overwhelming majority of pilots are expats, and one of the promoted benefits of joining is the ability to “bid to allow you more time with the family, or experience it’s new and exciting destinations” (*Emirates Pilot Recruitment Video, 2011.) This is not true. Manually restricting days off around Annual Leave is also performed, and for Expats it is a major negative aspect to job satisfaction.
The study prior to PPCs is box ticking by a department that has completely lost its way. The number of modules that now have to be completed is ridiculous, and serve no purpose other than for the Company remove fault from itself, should the pilot make an error at some stage, by stating that they were trained in it. There is a RGTS day prior to the simulator, the need to do more modules prior is completely unwarranted and is simply encroaching on more of a pilot’s already limited downtime.
The simulator timings themselves are also in need of revamp. A pilot simply will not perform at 3am as well as they will during normal day time hours. Repeated rostering of PPCs during the hours of 2300-0600 means that a pilot is getting absolutely no training benefit from the session, and is being placed into a position where their job is on the line, and they are not sufficiently rested for it. The argument that we fly jets at that time so you should be able to perform at that time is completely and totally ignorant. At 3am on a line flight we don’t have 3 major malfunctions occur and have to deal with, then get repositioned for a number of Low-Viz approaches with failures, then get repositioned for more approaches and/or failures that are all graded ‘Pass/Fail.’ To state that there has been ‘no change to the failure rate witnessed’ since the system has been changed to 3 simulator day training event running on concurrent days is similarly ignorant. I thought Day 3 was meant to be learning day? How much productive learning occurs between 2300-0600 for an exhausted pilot? The answer is none.
Emirates offered what should be the best and most challenging career for pilots- the network and aircraft are second to none. What should be a very easy ‘yes’ decision for prospective pilots to make when considering Emirates has now turned the other way because of the reasons I stated above and more. It is very disappointing for those of that left their home countries to work for what they considered was a progressive airline, and yet is now completely regressive.
But remember, "there is just too much negativity. Think positive - that is all that is needed for things to be good. Positive thinking will make everything good." Happiness Street anyone?
Good luck!