This is a long-overdue list of very valid and pertinent points. Obviously, some people will view certain points as being over the top, while others may see those same points as very important. Our opinions have fallen on deaf ears for so long that now the list could be twice as long as it is.
While I could add numerous items to the list, many of my concerns are addressed in some manner already. Different to a typical negotiation with a company’s management however, is that many of the mentioned items are not really negotiation points; they are really just the bare bones minimums that ought to have been in place already.
Days off, vacation and the pay are my biggest issues. The step increment on pay is not a pay raise; it is a pre-agreed contractual item. The company may have conveniently moved all sorts of things to the policy manual so they can manipulate them without touching the contract itself but that is against the spirit of the agreement we made with them when we joined. And the spirit of an agreement is as important as the words in the agreement itself. The company has violated both the contract and the spirit of the agreement and these matters must be corrected to give us back the baseline from which we can work towards a better company all round.
XX days on a roster are set and supposed to be guaranteed days off. Days off before and after an ULR trip are a scheduling requirement but are not part of the ULR pairing. If your ULR is removed for whatever reason, the days off before and after must still remain as days off. It is ridiculous to have no control over four of your days off every time you are scheduled for an ULR pairing. Furthermore, since days off after a ULR are scheduling requirements they should be scheduled even if you have vacation after the ULR. The company cannot use vacation to cover the legal scheduling requirements. These are just two, out of many examples, of where our rosters are being violated.
Similarly, Scheduling needs to stop calling days on which we work, rest days. If we are on duty during any amount of time in a given day, it’s a work day. For example, on the 201/202 pairing, the return flight leaves New York just before midnight on the second day of the three day pairing, which is actually well into day three based on Dubai time. The flight arrives in Dubai at 20:25 having flown entirely during the third day of the pairing. Why and how can this be classified as a rest day?? The entirety of the flight takes place during the calendar day of the destination station and it’s a rest day? Ummm… no!!
Respect is clearly a major problem. The lack of respect is reflected in every correspondence and interaction with the company. Office staff who fail to answer their phones or reply to messages, and if you do manage to reach anyone its like you woke them from a deep sleep. What ever happened to basic professional phone etiquette?
Then there’s the amount of time we have to wait for the bus to arrive after a flight, the excessive time waiting for our suitcases to be offloaded from the plane, and the ridiculous amount of time waiting for those bags to arrive at the baggage belt. If we were paid till we collected our suitcases in the office, rather than chocks on, we’d have a bus, loaded with our suitcases, waiting for us after arrival instead of the other way round.
The point is that while we have many big issues to deal with, there are plenty of smaller points that could, and should, be changed immediately. We’ve often commented that many of the smaller points are ‘no-cost’ items that would have a very positive impact if there were to be an attitude change across the board.
It has been far too long that we have endured empty promises of improved rosters and adequate crew numbers. Its high time the company took the necessary steps to correct their shortcomings and make this company the first choice of airlines to work for once again, instead of the last resort that qualified pilots shy away from.