Some personal perspective on the way out.
I have been out and back into flying airliners for a couple of times; for the third time now I am trying to get out for good (if everything works). I never posted a video on social media, though.
In the last 15 years a dramatic decrease in working conditions has been happening: both in monetary terms and quality of life. I did made the big $ in China and was an early comer to that part of the world but on an hourly rate, all factored in the deal was never better then the one I had in a Major back in Europe.
The price needed to be paid in decreasing QOL and health was -on the other hand- quite astonishing: I never fully realised it until I had to break away for few months.
After seen it all, in Europe, China and middle east, I have the feeling that I can't stand it anymore: I have also performed some consulting (inside and outside aviation) an the kind of unprofessionalism and total disregards for stakeholders that I have seen in the aviation businesses has been too much for me.
It all started to fall down when a relatively small ACMI-charter-line operator that asked me to find a senior network manager -with abysmal conditions on offer- and when I predicted they would not find anyone they were so infantile in their reactions to my feedbacks that I questioned my ownself in working for such a bunch of whining kids.
Shortly afterward my little firm was contacted from a very big operator in Ireland with specifics for a human resources management program that made a crook looks like a puppy bear. Theirs lacks of morality and business integrity forced me to refer to our legal department: when they came back to me advising that participating in such a project would have had serious legal consequences in our country, I the concluded that I was done with the airlines business altogether.
I have friends out there, first officers, normal line captains, training captains working for some low fares operators that are showing clear signs of mental health issues. Some others, in the same operators shows some discontent but seems to get by.
They do all complain though, how the "fly rinse and repeat" at those paces is soul destroying.
I sometime question if the corporate managers of these outfits are totally clueless or just plain criminals for ignoring the signs and consequences of the practises they are managing and implementing in their companies.
It's clear to me that, direction taken in Europe, Middle East and Asia has been -for far too long- the worst one.
So, inshallah, these will be my last months of flying...
Keep the blue side up.