Psycho Joe and Skylarker; interpreting your posts in the vein that you have read mine I could decide YOU are opinionated little smart arses, BUT I have age on my side, which has given me the experience to understand where you are coming from. I’m saying the industry has slipped and you don’t see it that way because you think it’s great… but it ain’t! There’s a lot you don’t know about that’s going on and so much has been lost.
We all have learned our stuff from people we regard as experts in their field and fire up when we are told something contrary. A lot of those teachers are just adequate.
We’re regularly fed lies and omissions ‘because it is for the common good’ or the almighty dollar.
Example… my father in law was a soldier during WW2. In 1952 his daughter came home from school and announced the teacher told them Darwin was bombed over sixty times.
George reckoned the teacher was a Commo liar. ‘HE’D been in the thick of it in the desert and New Guinea and ‘the boys’ were kept up on what was happening… they needed to be’. He was a bit disappointed at his naivety in later years when the secrets were released.
Years after the fact, all sorts of little truths come out and the old and wise start seeing through the official line we’re being fed because of their past experiences.
JOE! ...Interesting extrapolation; "An F/A puts laughing pax in exit row instead of an old man. So, therefore, the "modern Pilots" must be poorly trained, and Uni students are only half trained at best. So you decided to publish your findings here for peer review.
I love your interpretation.
Laughing passengers … no mate! tiddly passengers who had more drinks on the flight. Where did I say I wanted to be put in the exit row. I’m of medium height and had leg room. I didn’t covert the exit row. I could see that problems could occur if there had been a flame out prior to landing for example… no time other brace for impact.
I can see the need for more sense in utilizing trained people where they can be used. Virgin were bunging passengering crew down the back with the crying babies, because payers wouldn't want to sit there.
So THEREFORE??? Modern pilots must be poorly trained… where did you get that gem from?
Before deregulation crews got up to half as much more, training than they do now. Once the pilot started paying for endorsements the sim time was pared to the minimum. Flight attendant training time had diminished really badly in a couple of airlines I’ve been told about.
We were fortunate in having that extra time to get past ‘adequate’ to ‘confidently competent’. The company was paying and pilots ran the flight department and understood that a couple of more goes at something a bloke was struggling with got him over the hump and he would improve even more, at his own pace.
Bean counters have no idea of what flying is about … you just plug the auto pilot in and sit back and bludge according to some of them and a lot of the yobbos down the back.
Skylarker… “You have no real knowledge of our industry and no right to make such sweeping statements”. What leads you to that opinion?
I have probably been in the industry for longer than you’ve lived and I still am in it… Not getting shafted flying aeroplanes though. I walked when I saw the decline setting in like I’d heard it had happened in the railways decades before.
One of the things about getting older is you meet people all the time. Your peers progress from sproggy F.Os to management over the decades.
You talk to old friends and they tell you what’s happening.
I have friends in three airlines who love relating the latest goings on.
All the employees from check-in through aircrew and into engineering are doing the best they can. Nearly all are proud to be a member of the airline. Sadly the tools they are given by the bean counters are woefully inadequate… training, numbers and SPARES for example.
Management knows and relies on this pride to shaft the plebs. Management is a seperate industry. Stay for the contract then bugger off to greener pastures while the faithful employee remains for their working life.
Read the latest crash comic. Pilots are losing their touch because the company insists they plug the auto pilot in for almost all the flight. Pilots need to fly aeroplanes, not push buttons and monitor systems, because against all the odds, the computers CAN crap themselves and the last line of defence is the pilot who, like a top athlete NEEDS to keep in training to give the required performance and save the day.
Air crash investigation… are you game to watch them? …Lot of ham fistedness pops up in those episodes. Body angles and power settings for the flight range, do you know them?
Flight Attendants put up with crap they shouldn’t have to from complete yobbos. Their most common announcement, on being told to adhere to safety is, “You can’t make me”. F.As have more pax each to deal with than earlier days. Bean counters don’t give a bugger about the strain it puts them under. As I inferred, Garuda had six attendants in their 737 so all exits were manned by fully trained crew members. Indonesian passengers were a lot more respectful of them than we see here.
The bean counters got rid of the spares so the bottom line looked good… a nightmare for the poor bloody engineers who have to do a juggling act with MELs against their better judgement.
Check in personnel… who’d have that job? Angry customers who are wanting to punch their lights out because they’re the face of the company and are required to carry out the company policy. Does the company come to their aid and back them up as soon as they are under attack. No bloody way. There’s customer satisfaction and political correctness to adhere to and the employees can cop it so there’s no bad publicity.
The FAID system for rostering … what a beauty! A computer decides if crew are OK for a flight or fatigued.
Change a sign on or sign off time by five minutes like for example 05:00 to 05:05 and voila they can work.
In the olden days rostering was done by humans. A human understood fatigue so didn’t roster some poor bugger for a midnight sign on in Perth and a sit round at the destination for hours to then crew a flight that got him in to the final destination just within legal duty time. Computers DO.
I’ve learned that the wheel turns. Things can’t get much worse and they’ll improve and you hurt young guns will see just how bad it is now. Right now you think it’s great because you’ve busted your gut to get where you are.
If you are a bean counter… the day will come when common sense will prevail and your days of glory will fade. Enjoy it while you’ve got it and don’t spend all the loot you’re making. The day’ll come when you’ll need it.
Oldpax! you could do a printout of your flight simulator logbook too.