Can you trust your Company Training Captains ?
.......... Or ... Find out who your Friends are -
Judgment from a recent airline Employment Tribunal ...
In two long-running threads in this section, learned pruners discuss the benefits or otherwise of working for two and a half well-known UK airlines (British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and BA Euroflyer). Recent chat has described the questionable conduct of some training captains. Though not directly related to training, there is also worrying reference to more employment tribunals and some law-suits in the New Year.
If you want to read something more 'reliable' than anonymous scuttlebutt
*1* about the
nefarious workings of an airline's training department and its highly skilled and CAA-licensed trainers
*2* - either dancing to some crooked management agenda
*3* or
NOT doing their very best for their trainees, may I recommend reading a few paragraphs of this Employment Tribunal Judgment from 2022 ? -
https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribun...s-2302784-2017
For those who are not blessed with the time or mental fortitude to read all sixty pages, I have referred to a few paragraphs and you can take it from there, or not, as you wish.
There were several hearings and several written Judgments as the case developed. The final written Judgment is entitled
"Corrected Judgment with Reasons"and is dated 23 Feb 2022.Even the corrected version failed to correct the claimant's given name from Mark to Mike in the link above.
It is worth noting that 'reasons' for a Judgment are only produced on request to eligible parties and other than the Judgments, no formal records of ET proceedings are published. The enormous bundles of paper or electronic evidence and testimony are never made available for public scrutiny - merely referred to, tantalisingly, by coded reference in the Judgment text. However, it is now usually possible (upon personal application) to watch a hearing on live video, whether the hearing itself is by video or in person. Note for the unwary watcher - keep your own cam and mic OFF.
...
The Lawson case stems from a problematic Boeing 787 flight from LHR to HKG
on 25th September 2015 -
(for synopsis see pages 10 -12, paras 48 -64). Presented with an unusually difficult crew situation, the Captain's choices were to return to civilisation, continue to destination or land in central Russia. After consulting with the company by sat-phone and with his crew, he decided to continue to destination. There was no dissent and no further problem.
With some evident malice,
Captain Lawson was sacked on 19th May 2017. His decision to continue was, as far as I can see, never publicly criticised but unbeknown to him, a company 'Event Review Group' was critical of his actions and decisions on the event flight
(para 75). More it seems, the sacking decision came from some inexplicable determinations on the part of 'Captain AA', a 'Senior Training Captain' and some management decision-makers
(especially .paras 43 - 44 and 77 - 79, plus paras 266 - 271 and paras 275 - 278).
After an internal appeal and unsuccessful ACAS later in 2017 , the Employment Tribunal stewed on for over five years - from 2017 to 2022. The simple Judgment on Page 1 -
" 1. The claimant was unfairly dismissed ..." and
" 3. The respondent is ordered to pay to the claimant ..." (just over £90,000) barely touches the sides of this extraordinarily shameful case.
What disappoints me is the large number of individual licensed office-holders, named (or code-named) and shamed, who either took active parts in the persecution, or who failed to speak up or ask questions. Rough body count so far - eight managers, half a dozen training captains, and a training co-pilot.
Add to that the much larger number of ordinary crew (many of whom did not know Captain Lawson personally) who were willing participants in ostracising him and sharing lurid false stories
(especially paras 90 and 95 - 96, and para 156) about the original event.
You have to feel sorry for the unlucky line co-pilots who were roped in for dodgy simulator chop-rides, and sorry for his supportive cabin crew from the event flight, who were subjected (individually) to threatening and hostile questioning by managers in the hope they would dish dirt on the victim
(paras 83 to 87). They were also asked why they did not follow a particular checklist -
(para 86) which was quietly introduced
after the event. This was said to be the 'Double Pilot Incapacitation Drill' - A single page on how to fly the 787 - if there were no available pilots.
Management had plenty of opportunity to squash the false stories and support their pilot - (Does that sound familiar Pete ?) but chose to do neither
(paras 88 to 91, 161 and 194.) Indeed it seems it was concerns about the untrue lurid stories surrounding the event flight and unspecified and unsubstantiated inventions of historic poor performance that drove the move to sack him.
(See para 44 again).
It still took twenty months for this sorry story of prejudiced management persecution to fester into Captain Lawson's sacking,even before he had to endure the five years ET. He didn't want to leave the company and one reason he wasn't sacked earlier seemed to hinge on his refusal to sign an NDA
(para 171).
Following a successful routine sim check a week after the event flight, Lawson operated his normal roster until April 2016 when he did his next LPC/OPC. This and two further sim rides were, in short, recorded as
fail. (paras 98 - 107, 126 - 129 and 135 - 142). Unbelievably, one was with a Training FO who was Lawson's 'FO 1' on the event flight. You can arrange for anyone to fail a simulator ride if you are running the show and holding the bat and the balls at the same time. How many of us know about CAP 1049 ?
What was the claimant's original union doing for their member ? Very little it seems, other than trying to negotiate a severance package
(paras 145 - 148) apparently without significant involvement by the claimant. The company council vice-chair at the time, who was until quite recently chair of the VACC has just taken a top management position with his grateful employer. And the Regulator ? Not a lot, as usual.
Shame on you all.
Following a long period of unfitness to fly,
(paras 150 - 155) the claimant was supported by the now extinct PPU
(para 173) and later managed to 'mitigate his financial loss' by obtaining some temporary pilot jobs elsewhere.
In mid November 2021, just prior to the final ET five day remote videohearing, the company (having by now probably realised they were likely to lose) admitted to the 'unfair dismissal' and produced only two witnesses
(para 27). They claimed
(para 31) that all the
real witnesses were too busy or otherwise unavailable.
First witness - a management training captain who joined the company from Monarch in May 2016 as 'Senior Manager Training of the Boeing fleet', and became involved as the airline's new 'Head of Training and Standards' in April 2017, less than a month before Lawson was sacked. He met Lawson for the very first time, four days before the sack date
(para 198). The narrative of his 'evidence' took four pages
(pages 38 to 41)of the Judgment.
Second - a non-pilot 'flight crew manager' with no previous airline experience, who by his own claim, joined the company in June 2021,
four years after Lawson was sacked and less than six months before giving 'evidence' at the Employment Tribunal. The narrative of his 'evidence' took a further four pages of the Judgment
(pages 42 to 46). He quickly moved on to pastures new and is now 'Head of IR and Flying Teams' at BA.
Given some of the remarks in the Judgment about the absence of any of the several 'real witnesses' for the respondent
(page 6 para 31 - 32) one wonders if these two strangers to the case (who unfortunately would 'have no knowledge' of the events leading to the sacking, were naively reading from someone else's malicious script.
...
*1* I am NOT trying to diss the concept of anecdotal scuttlebutt on PPRuNe - OPSEC must be preserved as we used to say in the Air Force. Scuttlebutt is best kept anonymous as we don't want the inevitable reprisals to be made too easy. As we know from elsewhere on PPRuNe etc., given the right resources, even the truth can often be legally suppressed.
...
*2* The highly respected professional qualifications of TRI and TRE are the gift of the UK CAA - NOT of the airline or its management. Thus we should expect high ethical integrity from our TRI/TREs, who should avoid any temptation to prostitute themselves upon the altar of an oppressive or vindictive employer. ... Cue - CAP 1049 reminder.
...
*3* For 'balance' I offer this ET originating from the BA pilots strike in 2019. Note once again, the inability of the ET to spell the claimant's name correctly
...
For both the Lawson and the Osborne cases, one might ask if the Regulator ever bothers to consider whether the 'named and shamed' characters meet the statutory requirement of
'fit and proper' to exercise the management or training posts they are
privileged to hold.
Happy New Year, One and All.
And mind how you go.
LFH
...