Counting the time
Dear Colleagues, shaved, unshaved and all in between.....
It is not funny anymore to call us "Aviators", we became rather "Obstacles" in the calculation: We earn too much and do too less. Why the heck do those guy´s get so much paid for nothing? they sit there for hours and the "Autopilot" is flying. Not only in public opinion also the company employees have that in mind when they asked about the tasks of Pilots.
I agree that flying became too cheap in both ways: Acountants are running a Airline today and have a vocabulary that is disgusting. Managers having previous expirience at Fast Food Chains and try to implemente that mentality into the Catering and inflight service.
The support and planning personnel knows flying from the virtual world and not from actual expirience and there decissions are based on synthetic values how they make your monthly roster.
The devaluation of the currency is your problem and the payrise is less then the local currency is traded against the leading currencies.
We can complain as much as we like but: The smell of JetA in the morning when the "Drogon in the back" is growling in a guttural fashion, or when you fly north of the 72nd in June and is dusk and dawn at the same time, when you brought your ship safe back thru all odds to the ground and landed on the spot then we are proud of what we do and we have forgotten all odds until we get the next: Call from Dispatch, contact with the HM-BAA Security check, note from the Management that we are in the red and we need to save more money to increase the shareholder value..... that is the moment I am calculating my remaining time as per today: 6 years, 5 months and 12 days, then I am done and put the hat on the hook, as a professional Pilot. My Poston Engine Rating will be renewed after that and when it is severe CAVOK then I see myself sneaking into a Airfiled again, just for fun then.....
I have meet so many people in Aviation who where great characters, who either helped me in the beginning to become what I am today. I meet nice and interesting Individuals as who travelled with me on a flight and we spoke about interesting subjects, they sometime enriched my horizon. I could make people happy when we had them in the Flight Deck for a visit and some of them made the dream come thru.
Today? We are the obstacle at the security checkpoint and not seen at the last line of defense in some cases, we are not the ones who want to kill everybody in and with the Metal we are moving, we want the people save meet theire relatives on the other end, (Destination) have a enjoyable journey and remember that time they had.
We are seen as the Cost incentive factor and not as the save the day person when we work into discrection and extend the duty time to the max. to ensure 24/7 that the ball is rolling and the clock keeps ticking. A old saying is: Try an accident and then make the math.... SAFETY is a priority but the factor is unknown in the calculation.
So now I am off to the Office and see what comes next, I hope it is not another slam in the face. We have two cheeks, if we get hit on the right we can offer the left... Is that not where we are going in some cases the last decade??