A300 man,
I wish I could give you some good news but I can not!
Qatar Airways is reaching a very critical phase, mismanagement has started to collect its toll in a very very hard way.
The CEO is trying to correct the situation, in his usual chaotic manner, but its too late.
* On the A330, most pilots have reached the 900hrs legal limit by now. The ones that still can operate are the new joiners and guys just transferred from other fleets.
* Rostering, a department currently running without any form of management, tries to cover this up with fake standby’s, roster patterns like the ones you are talking about etc. It is very common these days to see pilots with two weeks of STBY duty, all of which is illegal due to the 900 hrs limit but at least the rosters are showing stbys so the CPs are happy.
* A320 fleet is squeaking at the moment, the guys being deadly tired from crazy split duty days and 6 hrs layovers in the Gulf.
* The numbers of pilots calling in sick (fed up, over exhaustion, abuse by rostering etc) has never been as high as the last three months.
* Pilots are resigning by the dozens at the moment.
So yes, it is actually a very dangerous situation and management is pretending nothing is wrong...
Add to this the following:
* Training standards (and recruitment stds) are at an all time low, due to the wrongly organised selection of instructors (since when doe airlines select instructors based on seniority and not on actual merit and performance??)
* Self made skippers (bubble gum machine self proclaimed captains) are filling the left seats at the moment.
* Pilot standards in general dropped below 0. Even a simple HF position report proves to be too difficult.
* Morale is at an all time low and pilots spend their time bitching and moaning in the flight decks, hereby forgetting to do the necessary studying or to monitor an area chart!
* In the meanwhile, whoever is left over in management, is focussing on stupid programs like the newly introduced fuel planning and electronic flight bag stuff, hereby removing every paper checklist on board (e.g. the airport briefings in front of the trip kits...a very good idea which had proven its value but which was removed by an over energetic manager who lost touch with what’s going on line)
It is a very sad situation these days, being a pilot for QR.
And in all honesty, bringing in external management people should have been done ages ago...it’s too late now!
QR has become an airline for the weak and outcast pilots of the world....
Swiss cheese model......holes....lining up....history repeating itself.....
Last edited by Sgnr de L'Atlantique; 11th Oct 2007 at 23:07.