In response
Folks – If I may respond. Not to dispute your points but perhaps clarify for those wanting to know how the system works and the history.
KippaLippa
The last time the pay scale was published was in 2003 along with the annual pay review, as always. In 2004 we got the pay review but the salary scale was not published with it. At the time they needed and were recruiting DEC’s. However not all DEC’s came in on the same salary. Technically they should have come in on Level 1 and immediately jumped to Level 11 as per policy. Some would not accept this salary so negotiated a higher one. EK simply put them on higher levels to accommodate, thus disrupting the established system. In order to avoid the understandable outrage from Captains who had been in the company as FO’s and upgraded to captains, the system was made opaque.
Pif Paf
Yes the seniority list was effectively scrambled so that individuals could not calculate the attrition rates and query them in various forums. Vague excuses were used, none of them convincing. Attrition was up to 7% earlier this year. Lately it has dropped to about 4.9%. But its all about how you measure it. With creative statistics the company claims it is lower.
It is a fact that the company makes it difficult to do any analysis when it knows the area is problematic. The removal of Duty Time on rosters in 2011 is another example. At this point A330 pilots were doing up to 50% more duty time than other fleets and getting proportionately less rest. Answer: Remove the Duty Time column from the rosters and only publish Block Time. Many excuses made, none with merit as the cabin crew maintained a roster with Duty Time column published for years after. This incidentally was due to the large increase to the productivity threshold in 2009 on the basis of more ULR flying. Someone forgot to take into account that the A330 didn’t do ULR. How those crews managed to avoid a fatigue related accident is a credit to their professionalism. It did knock years off their lives I expect.
Fliion
The increase in productivity threshold, I would not call a pay cut in the strictest terms. I somewhat glossed over that as it is complex and I wanted to simply stay with the remuneration rather than the increase in rate of work for that remuneration.
However I take your point in that it removed money from the pocket. It resulted in 2 outcomes. Less take home pay as most pilots were worked to the new threshold, so pilots lost thousands in Productivity Pay. The second being a drop in pay per flying hour in total. Simply put they cut our rate of pay by demanding more hours for the same money.
It was a considerable reduction, as you say around 17% more work demanded for the same pay. It was publicized as a temporary measure to deal with the 2009 financial crisis. It was much later marginally reduced to the current 88. I think this was because the fatigue levels with non ULR rosters were alarming.
The Productivity Pay system still remains the underlying problem in all aspects today. Introduced in 1996, it was sensible and fair, and designed to reward those who “went the extra mile”. It was of great benefit to both parties. The company benefitted as the additional hours were about half the cost of what was paid in total for an block hour (cost of pilot per annum divided by 900) and existing pilots could earn more without additional overhead cost. Most importantly it catered for proportional productivity thresholds when pilots took leave (albeit with a marginal benefit to the company)
Again in 2004 this was disingenuously contorted when they removed many aspects of the system but lowered the thresholds claiming it would be “cost neutral”. It may indeed have been cost neutral to them but totally unbalanced the process leading to an unfair system that allowed abuse, the main one being it allowed the company to compress rosters in an effort to make pilots work back their leave for no productivity pay. Despite lowering the threshold of a 31 day month to 78 block hours, we find ourselves today doing 88 block hours before Productivity kicks in.
This of course lead to other problems. Example; limiting days off before and after leave. This was done on the claim of one pilot calling in fatigued after leave and days off. The story may have been true though we don’t know the background, however this was never the reason to limit days off after leave. The truth is that the message was not to expect days off before or after leave because you are unlikely to get them. Your roster will be compressed to make up for the leave you are taking!
Summary
The remuneration has failed to keep up with inflation. AIMINGHIGH123 is correct in that this is the same throughout the industry. I believe the trend will continue. A stark warning to anyone seeking to take up the career. A warning to those early in the career to perhaps consider alternative plans unless you want to fly yourself to an early grave. I cant see our cadets keeping this up for the next 40 years.
Technology is largely responsible. Companies can sustain much less experience as the many automated and improved systems allow less experienced crews to perform relatively safely. Essentially automation is already diminishing our rewards for experience we have. I suspect the next step is to vastly reduce the requirements for pilots augmenting in the cruise further leading to effective salary cuts. I don’t see single pilot ops for many years.
However, I do believe that the cost cutting by lowering experience has hidden unforeseen consequences. Ask Boeing how this has worked out for them. Cozy with the regulator and cutting aggressively while claiming the product is as safe. Sound familiar? They simply couldn’t anticipate how it would catch up with them. It always does in this industry.
As for this company… IMHO there will be no satisfaction on issues like rosters, leave and fatigue until our hugely complicated, administratively inefficient and expensive, and eye-wateringly inequitable remuneration system is completely overhauled.
It’s easy to do with intelligence and a good background (which I’m not convinced many managers actually have on this topic) but it would require input from sensible pilots who understand the system and a management that had a genuine interest in rewarding proportionately and curbing the fatigue and inexperience threat that hangs over us and will inevitably manifest in some way.