The Demise of the Professional Pilot
It is very sad to see, and must be very concerning for those pilots with years to go before retirement, or those considering a career as a professional pilot.
In the past the Airline Captain was a rewarding and satisfying career. The pay was commiserate with the expense and work required to obtain the qualifications, and study/work to maintain your qualifications (e.g.: recurrent Sims, CRM, DG’s courses, Tech Knowledge etc) and the experience that had to be gained over many years before you could Captain a Jet Airliner. The conditions (i.e. days off, duty hour restrictions, company restrictions, annual leave, benefits etc) compensated for the many duties flying throughout the night, through different time zones, with half your year spent in a hotel room far from your home and family. Compared to other professions like doctors, lawyers, accountants who also may have worked long hours, but could go home to the family each night.
Look at how things have changed in recent years. Selfish, Greedy Airline Owners, CEO’s and Managers have turned this profession into a sad and sorry state. Professional decision making has been taken away from the Captain, and given to the Managers, Rostering and Commercial Departments. Yes on paper you are still the one to make the final decision, but look deeper, even on this forum, and you will see if you try to exercise your responsibilities you will be deemed to be a trouble maker, or acting against the company’s best interests and be held back, intimidated, sacked or forced to leave.
With the introduction of low cost carriers, who basically keep their fares low by paying all pilots, flight attendants, engineers, check in staff and loaders minimum pay, are rostered long hours and with negligible benefits, all airlines are cutting their pay and conditions to compete. Yet even these low cost companies are continually reducing their staffs pay and conditions. Just look on this forum at airlines such as Ryan Air, whose pilots apparently have to pay for their own recurrent training with the airline. (See
www.ryan-be-fair.org). The only salaries increasing in this industry are the CEO’s, BOD’s and Managers , who continually vote themselves pay rises and bonuses while all other staff are faced with pay cuts due reasons such as rising fuel prices, SARs, competition etc. With China’s and India’s economies strengthening, and therefore their requirement for fossil fuels increasing you have to expect even more drastic pay cuts to compensate, as all the other fixed costs such as aircraft and equipment will not decrease, therefore the only option left is to cut staffs pay and conditions, and to operate with less staff who work longer hours, for less money.
I believe these Airline Owners, CEO’s and Managers should be despised and held in contempt for their greedy and intimidating management.
Of course you will always get low experience pilots taking positions with them to gain experience, but where do you plan to go once you’ve gained the experience. Most major National Carriers and other supposedly non low cost carriers are drastically reducing their pay and conditions to compete, rather than all airlines raising their fares.
The pay for many airlines is lower, or soon will be, than for bus drivers, train drivers, heavy machinery operators with limited financial outlay, exam qualifications, or recurrent training. I’m sure they could have been pilots if they wanted to spend the money, and years of study required. If fact their duty time limitations are getting more restrictive than pilots.
Then you have the relevant CAA’s, FAA’s who seem way out of touch with the hours required by today’s airline pilots. Since the duty times were introduced years ago, every time a new longer range aircraft is introduced airlines ask for longer duty hours to fly them, and the CAA’s always say yes. Nowadays we can work a 12, 14, 16, 18 hour plus, duty, throughout the night, on many consecutive nights, and in many cases, as with our airline, they don’t even require a bed to sleep, just an upright seat, with all the lights on, noisy passengers, flight attendant services etc.
While we have slip patterns that take us on all night flights from the UK to Aus & NZ (13 hour time zone changes) within a few days, minimum rest then back again, with one maybe two days at home base before were off again. Have they heard of Jet Lag, you cannot always sleep when you have too because your body clock wont let you. I think for them Jet Lag is something they get when they go on a long flight on holiday, and then they sit on a beach for 10 days before flying home. The most taxing operation they have to do if figure out how that flexi straw in their pinacolada works. Try operating a Jet in fowl weather after flying several long flights on consecutive nights, for several months on end.
Yet ironically these twits making and extending these duty time limits sit in a quiet office from 9am to 5pm from Monday to Friday.
The flight and duty times has just been extended. Also as these new ultra long range aircraft are emerging the CAA’s and DCA’s of the world have allowed only the time in the front seat to be counted as duty time, therefore a 16 hour flight, with 18 hours of duty time could be counted as only 9 hours for example, therefore you can expect to do an extra trip or two a month. You can have it.
You’ll have to have a strong marriage to cope with that. If it doesn’t you’ll have to plan on working until your 65 to crawl back financially to where you were before the divorce took half of everything you had. Of course I’ve seen this already with long haul pilots.
Then in their wisdom they write a CAP371 best practices recommendations which are not mandatory, knowing only a handful of airlines will actually implement them. So the majority of airlines work their crew’s right up to the max hours ignoring these recommendations. They should be mandatory, otherwise don’t bother issuing them.
The hours worked, with multi sector short haul, or consecutive long haul, with fatigue due to jetlag etc, are unsustainable for a 40 year career. Some may feel they can work these hours just to gain enough experience to move to a respectable airline, yet the respectable airlines are very few now, and the working hours of these airlines are constantly been extended, and pay been reduced. A few pilots in the airline I’m with have retired early as they could not cope, or did not wish to try and cope with the hours been rostered, since our roster patterns were changed 3 years ago. One lost his medical. Yet it’s a lot of money and work to outlay to obtain the qualifications to only plan to do it for 15 to 20 years until you’ve burnt out, then move on to do something else. Can you imagine a doctor or lawyer plan on only working for 15-20 years before retiring and looking for a change of jobs? Then with the pay been constantly reduced it’s unrealistic to think you’ll have any where enough money to retire from flying and start a new line of work.
Can you count on working these hours for 40 years and keeping your medical? Certainly it won’t be long before the retirement age is 65 for pilots, assuming you maintain you’re medical until then. Yet this may be required to put aside sufficient money to retire comfortably.
Many pilots in the company I’m with are angry and are looking to leave, yet they can’t find a better job to go to at the moment. Others are saying they hope to get out of the industry in 3 to 5 years. If there is a pilot shortage in the future, then just expect to have to work longer hours to crew the schedule (this has happened in the airline I’m working with).
It’s time Airline Owners, Airline Management and the Governing CAA’s, FAA’s and DCA’s of the world were held responsible. As has been documented, Airliner incidents and accidents are normally a series of factors, with documented proof fatigue and commercial pressure is one of the major contributors, therefore the next time an accident is blamed on pilot error, check if fatigue or commercial pressure was a factor, and pass the blame directly on the above. It’s easy to say the Captain has the final responsibility, but as with the airline I am with, if I was to refuse to do the flight, or stand down due to myself or my crew been fatigued, my contract would be terminated immediately with no reason given.
Am I been dramatic? Yes
Am I been pessimistic? Yes
Am I angry? Yes
Am I been realistic? Yes
Good luck and good health, you’ll need it.