Let’s look at some FACTS regarding working for QR and AAB, alias the ‘Poisoned Dwarf’.
Pay wise, there are no guaranteed minimum hours. So that 100/75QR per hour figure means a poor pay packet unless you are rostered for 70+ hours. Contrary to what you read here, many pilots are being rostered for 50 hours, not 70. If you are flying 320’s you might be rostered for 60+hrs block, but this means 150+ flight duty. 320 crews have few layovers, 330 and 300 crews are virtually not at home.
Then there’s the time you spend on duty travel, which must be in uniform, without being paid for it, together with the time you spend on standby, again without pay. And as for the overnight allowances, forget them. They are for meals only and cheaply calculated at that.
Start looking around Doha for a decent place for your family. You can’t buy, so you must rent. The maximum total package is 6,200QR with FO’s getting slightly less. Any decent place will cost you 7,500 (and increasing) and that’s unfurnished. Since QR allow you only economy checked baggage allowance when you join, you can bring 10 kg with you on the plane and then a mighty 150 kg by air freight separately. That’s one hell of a lot of personal effects to set up a new life! An unfurnished villa in Doha means TOTALLY unfurnished. You must set up everything, including air conditioning, cookers, etc. As an expat you have to pay for water and electricity which can be around 600 a month.
And then for the really good bit; nothing is allowed! However no Conditions of Service Booklet exists to tell you what is or isn’t allowed? AAB loves to know about everything and he checks the people who work for “him” on a regular basis during surprise visits to the airport or the check-in building. He freely admits to having spies everywhere to report you should you drink the orange juice or ask for a handful of nuts……..even if they’re being thrown out at the end of the flight! You are threatened with instant dismissal for such childish things as not wearing your hat in the bus. Cockpit crew cannot release the jumpseats to cabin crew as “they might distract them from their job”. And on it goes!
Staff Travel is a joke. 3 days to get a ticket. Cabin crew can only buy economy tickets on QR and WILL NOT be upgraded. As a result, if EY is full they are left behind unless some EY pax is upgraded to make room for them! Same goes for FO’s with business class to first. But the cabin crew are in the worst position anyhow. A lot of hard work, continuous pressure and fear of being terminated rules their daily lives. Management tries to hire as many people from poorer countries as possible, because they expect them to work and shut up. Lack of English and general understanding is quiet common. Knowledge is learned by heart, and repetition of the drills has to be exactly as it is written in the book.
Qualified First Officers are not being upgraded. Instead the company hires non rated captains as DEC. The goal posts for LHS training keep changing and when your time does come around, you are subjected to an interview to see whether you are suitable? One comment on your sim file and it’s the sin bin for two more checks. So a further12 months before another interview.
And then there’s rostering; what rostering? Rosters are regularly out a day before the beginning of the month. So-called computerised rosters which have one pilot on 50 hours and another on 90? Return to Doha from Colombo in the morning and leave that night for Manchester is an example of a typical ‘pairing’. Who cares? It’s ‘legal’.
Which brings up FTL’s? There are no relief qualified pilots, so a third pilot is sometimes included in the crew to ‘augment’ it. The crews do not rotate in the seats so one pilot just sits in the jumpseat like an observer, sometimes for eleven hours. This means at the end of the flight there are three exhausted pilots instead of just the two. Moreover it happens that the extra crew positions to do this duty (as a passenger, not being paid for it of course) and then returns on the jumpseat, or vice versa.
Overall the biggest problem in QR is that management does not value its people. Although QR is short of pilots and cabin crew, it does nothing to change the situation. AAB simply doesn’t care. Despite the bonds, etc., personnel continue to leave the company because they’re sick and tired of being exploited by the management and AAB’s stupid rules.