The fatigue issues are absolutely real. Over a year ago, in "response" to the global economic issues we are all sick of by now, the company arbitrarily changed the threshold above which they paid overtime. The previous threshold was 78 hours/month. With a single memo, it became 92 hours/month. (With small variances for shorter months). Immediately, all rosters jumped from around 80 hours of flying/month, to over 90. One of the guys I spoke to recently had flown 113 hours for the month -with another flight to go. The company HATES to pay overtime. Yet they are so short he was called out to operate the flight even at overtime rates.
This, in an operation that has routes that can span 12 timezones - in both directions.
But the A330 guys have it worse. They have to try and accumulate their 92 hours in short turnaround flights. Many of them are flights that depart in the middle of the night, operate to the sub-continent, and then return mid-day. Very, very exhausting. A typical roster might have one flight arriving at 7am in the morning. And then the next flight LEAVES at 8am the following morning!
So the pilot is expected to try and sleep during the day, then, the same day, wake up, and then return to sleep to try and be rested for his 5:45am pickup the following day. It just isn't possible. Have kids and a family? You are SCREWED.
Week after week the ASR (Air Safety Report) summary is released to the employees. Every week, several reports filed. Week after week after week. Pilots micro-sleeping, not alert, missing calls and functions. The GCAA (the regulatory body) says they're helpless without receiving reporting on issues. Where do these reports go after they're filed with the company? No one knows.
At each recurrent groundschool there is a meeting with management brass where they supposedly listen to concerns. Over and over fatigue comes up. They admitted they have a real problem, and we were told last summer that it wouldn't improve for awhile, but the fall should see some improvement. That lie has since been extended into 2011. There is a huge pool of unclaimed leave due to everyone being unable to take their contractual leave.
The doctors at the clinic know all about it and are mightily concerned. One doctor described the pilots from the A330/40 and B777 fleets that she sees, as "zombies". (A380 rosters at the moment are quite pleasant. Wait till they get more a/c and start the BOM etc flights.)
If a pilot reports "fatigued", he is required to report to the clinic for what is called a "fatigue analysis" process. It used to be possible to have the doctor deem that yes, you are exhausted, take some time off, with the amount of time at the doctor's discretion. Generally a week would be given for severe cases. So what has the company done? Changed their policy (communicated to the doctors, not the pilots) so that the doctors are now permitted only to grant a maximum of two days off due to fatigue. If you require more than that, you have to return to the clinic to see the doctor again, at which point I guess they're expected to make up some ailment if you need more time off. This seems clearly designed to at least reduce the REPORTING of how much time off is being given due to fatigue. Hide, camouflage, deflect, deceive. It's the company culture here.
I myself am basically in a semi-permanent state of exhaustion. Not "tired" in the usual sense, just in a half-charged state of constant fatigue. I don't think in terms of "local time" or day or night or whatever. I can't sleep for more than 4-5 hours at a time, regardless of whether it is light or dark in whatever city I happen to be. I live a completely reactive life to fatigue now, taking a nap when I need one, and being eyes-open in the middle of the night. The body doesn't know if it's coming or going anymore, and it never "catches up". I'm never in one timezone long enough for it to do so.
Flights are operated the same way. Try and get just enough rest before a flight or during ("controlled rest on the flight deck") so that hopefully, you can be just alert enough to perform the descent, approach and landing successfully. Survival.
It's just plain greed. The company is massively profitable. They are acutely short of pilots. They realized when they moved the goalposts on monthly flying, that they could make massive amounts of money from it. They acknowledge there is a problem. Yet they don't take their foot off the expansion gas pedal, they just keep pressing harder.
I have absolute certainty that it will end in a smoking hole somewhere. It's simply a numbers game. The colleagues I speak to all say the same, the attitude is simply one of defensiveness: "Im going to try and do everything I can to make sure it isn't on MY watch". But no one seriously thinks that it can go on like this without the inevitable.
Yet is doesn't change. The FAA, CAA, Transport Canada....no one does anything. I guess they will when their accident investigators are in their vehicles heading to the scene. Hopefully that will be after I've sucked the gear into the wells for the last time out of DXB.