Finalverdict says:
…it is about time that management in all airlines… give a bit of more respect, empathy and consideration to their commanders and pilots.
Interesting comment, and one quite possibly worthy of a thread of its own.
I’d be very interested to read from others on this site whether I’m alone in my suspicion that that amorphous group we pilots lump under the heading ‘management’ have been on a conscious, unremitting, deliberate and very committed campaign to undermine and downgrade the once relatively respected position a captain enjoyed in the airline industry
Where this management attitude has grown from is debatable, (just as, I admit, is my original assertion). It’s always been there to some degree – just read ‘Flying the Line’, the history of ALPA –
especially those of you who pillory and ‘don’t need’ unions – to see what this job was –
and would have continued to be – if the likes of Eddie Rikenbaker had had their way with their ‘Genghis Khan’ management attitudes towards pilots. Sufficient to say that had Rikenbaker and his ilk had their way, very few of us now reading this thread would have elected to become airline pilots in the first place - no matter how deep their love of flying might be – because it simply would not have been an attractive job for anyone with an iota of ambition or self-respect.
But that was fifty to seventy years ago, and I’m very aware that there are many who don’t believe that ‘ancient’ history has anything to teach them. Looking at slightly more contemporary events, I believe quite a large proportion of the ‘blame’, if that’s the right word, for the current management attitude can be traced back to Frank Lorenzo in the US and Pytor Abeles and Rupert Murdoch in Australia in the 80s –
but far moreso, to those pilots who allowed them to get away with their union-busting tactics by co-operating with them for what doubtlessly seemed worthwhile reasons for many at the time.
Management worldwide learned far more from the US and Australian debacles than many, if not most, pilots not directly affected seem to have learned. They saw that they could use just about anyone to fly modern aircraft – and get away with it… or most of the time. There is always that floating group of mercenaries holding a job in a not so nice part of the world who’ll come running (to say nothing of the ‘wannabes’ who’ll take any conditions to get a foot in the proverbial door). Then there are always some others who have been recently laid off by other companies - some of these will take any job under almost any conditions just to put food on the table. But most importantly, they learned that they could always rely on a sufficiently large group from within their won company’s pilot ranks to ‘break ranks’ due to company loyalty, weakness or perceived short-term personal gain. All these pilots could usually rationalise their actions (to their own satisfaction, at least), with high-sounding platitudes and moralizations.
(Don’t believe me? Take a look on the current Cathay work ban threads.)
In short?
The problem is a self-inflicted wound – we’re doing it to ourselves.