JJ737 & Dougie,
I couldn't agree more. To Big T, I do not advocate that the best answer is 4/4 for flight crew. If management insist on a fixed pattern, then this is better than 6/3 or 5/3 etc etc. Even the managemnent pilots agree that you are tired on day 5. However, they, probably, only fly occasional blocks of 5 days, not repeatably. So if you are tired at the end of the first block, after 1 month you are knackered, and the family is royally hacked off with your life style.
As Dougie says, fixed rosters are not necessary, and in most world airlines don't exist. They gives reduced flexibility to both crews & crewing, in an industry where flexibility is the buzz word; but then we all know from vast experience that flexibility operates in a one way street.
The simple fact remains that with efficient rostering, which = productivity, the budgeted amount of work can be achieved in 180 duty days, including SBY. Why then must you be on duty for 232 days pa. This is only because FTL's allow this limit. We all know what would happen if the limit would be raised, e.g Italy. The limits are being used as targets, which was never the intention. Surely the correct attitude is to maximise productivity, and once that productivity has been achieved then the job is done and any remaining time is free.
Why oh why do rosterers have the attitude that duty time = productivity and therefore if you have only the minimum days off you must be producing? This is total nonsense. What is the point of having twice or three time the number of crews on SBY just so they are logged as being on duty? Or going to work to produce 3 hours of revenue flying. Utter rubbish.
To BIg T. the 4/4 need not infringe the 18/34 guideline as day 2 or 3 could be SBY, and therefore not planned to be in this period. But isn't it strange that rosteres say this 'guideline' should not be infringed, when all the other guidelines are ignored.
Quick fixing is a waste of time, as are the same roster patterns for different operations. LoCo, charter, long-haul, short-haul; all different. Each should apply a common sense pattern, mutually agreed, to suit their own paticulars. It ain't rocket science, it is an attitude problem that is easily solved if management wanted to. There-in lies the crux; they don't want to. But sure as gravity is more certain than most things it is going to bite them very hard one day. You have to be blind to not to see the gap widening between ground based jobs and airborne T's & C's; and it ain't the airborne ones improving. The turn over in C/A's is frightening.
I watch with horror the conditions under which Loco C/A's work, for 12 hours non-stop, 5 days consecutively, compared to anyone else on the ground.
When is someone going to be honest and start up "Sweat shop Airlines"? The complete b@#$%^ks written in recruitment adverts is scandalous and an abuse of the very intelligence they demand of the applicant.
All the new reality TV shows, about good/bad business practices; one of those let lose inside an airline would be fantastic and a real eye-opener for the public.
I wonder what a poll of the senior members of the profession, pilots and C/A's, would turn up if asked whether they would recommend their own role as a profession to a school leaver. Mm?