I agree with Sqwak7700.
Why can’t our Union get even a fraction of the respect the Company gives the cabin crew? That’s what I’d like to know.
I’ve been pondering how our terms and conditions have deteriorated over the past few years while the cabin crew have held on to theirs. Why has the Company’s respect for their pilots deteriorated, while they tiptoe around the cabin crew?
For instance, on overseas patterns, the cabin crew stays twice as long as we do (48 hours recovery time, while we get 18-24 hours to recover and then fly back). They argue that they need this as rest. The Company gives in. Inference…it’s legal, and the pilots don’t require as much rest.
Our FTL’s have become performance targets which crew control roster us to. Some of the regional patterns defy belief, where pilots are positioned on a freighter for 12 hours, so they operate the third sector home (usually into discretion), while the first crew positions home on the last sector. The end result, an 18-hour duty on a regional sector, flying in and out of some of the most challenging airports on the planet! This pattern is rostered like this to save the hotel costs (while the cabin crew hotel costs on their 48 hour rest patterns are considered sacrosanct). The Company does not, and will not, roster cabin crew like this. Inference…it’s legal, and the pilots don’t require as much rest.
Two pilots rostered to fly through the night to Australia when our FTL’s call for a minimum of three pilots. We take this to court and LOSE!!! Inference…it’s legal, and the pilots don’t require as much rest.
On a Middle Eastern pattern ISD are paying the cabin crew more allowances than the cockpit crew. Our GMA in a letter to the crew stated this, only in passing, as if it didn’t matter why ISD felt the need to do this while flight ops didn’t. Inference…you tell me!!!!
And to avoid any form of confrontation with the cabin crew, the DFO admits in his weekly letter that the Company will pay two seperate cabin crew to fly the same hours (one of which will receive overtime)?????
Don’t get me wrong, I support our cabin crew and applaud their success. But shouldn’t the AOA give it's collective head a shake and learn a lesson or two from all this? Shouldn’t we all? We keep getting weekly letters from the Union giving us updates on the Company's intransigence to our concerns, but what if anything is ever done?
The AOA needs to let the Company know that now that the financial house is in order, our concerns need the same love and attention the Company give to the cabin crew.