The most interesting thread in years, and I hope Mana will continue his dialogue.
Mana,
EK is at the point that management feels compelled enough to damage control and post on an internet forum. Very telling situation isn't it? This fact alone should be extremely worrying and as mentioned before is an effect not a cause of the poor morale within EK.
If an individual has a 50-60k yearly drm DEWA bill, perhaps it would be best to isolate the issue not brushstroke the entire villa community and unilaterally alter a contract. When isolated incidences occur don't you think they should be treated as such? This applies to shoot from the hip FCIs, FCNs, SOP's and a plethora of other reactionary changes over the recent years. Take some time to digest the situation and why it happened and how it can be reasonably rectified for a win-win solution.
Cost cutting contract adjustments and productivity increases have been made to the complete disregard for the safety and health of the pilot group. Fatigue is a very serious issue and rosters are stretched to the absolute maximum. The time zone changes, day and night operations and challenges to some of our destinations are not fully appreciated or considered. Just keep your head down, you are lucky to have a job we are told. Good for morale??
The company is disjointed from many outside managers with the job of cost cutting and internal savings. There is very little cohesion or an open door policy of any kind. Come and talk to your manager? You must be joking. It is a very dragonian management style and here we are trying to vent our frustrations. Believe it Mana, this is a fact. It might not seem like it from your office, but look at these posts. It's not idle complaints and bored pilots with nothing better to do. There has been a paradigm shift in the last 5 years and EK is a money making machine, not so much a proud employer of highly motivated and happy employees. Can you imagine the profits if that were the case? One of the frustrating facts is that the foundations are there to make EK a great place to work. However, we are treated and FEEL like a neccessary evil. So just a few suggestions:
Respect our contract and conditions of service, more open and honest dialogue, read the last one again, honor internal transfers by seniority, hire more pilots for greater flexibility and lower the bid window, implement a true non-punitive safety culture, reward us when we sacrifice with pay increases, give us more positive feedback and search for ways of improving morale. It IS important.
Most pilots are willing to help and have done so in great numbers in the past but pay us over a reasonable threshold, not 92 hours. Most pilots have a very professional attitude, give EK their best and want this company to succeed, but you can't keep eroding our working conditions and take advantage of us without an eventual backlash. You have it before you.
But you say we must do this to protect the companies interests and profitability...yes, but to what end Mana? Where does the cost cutting and increase in productivity end? On the very backs of your hard working employees, EK will announce outstanding profits at year end in a couple months. I sincerely hope the pilot group will be compensated for our contributions.
This is not a pprune rogue group of negative pilots spouting off - this is honest feedback and the true realities from your hard working line pilots. EK is in the business of moving people, but it is also in the business of PEOPLE and PEOPLE, not airplanes , is it's most important commodity. I suggest EK start to remember this and quickly.
Last edited by Saltaire; 11th Mar 2010 at 07:43.