Waterside:
I don't quite follow your points at all. Blackandbrown makes an excellent summary of what this job involves (especially in a UK winter!) and yet you then seem to insist that he can't cope with it?
I'd point to the fact that I've just come back off a duty now, and I'm having another 6 day week with 2 days off before going back to work again (the girlfriend has already asked me if she'll ever see me again!) - I've spent 4 days of the week getting up stupidly early, with the earliest alarm clock at 2:30am and now I'm onto a late pattern, which means that I'm finishing at 11:00-11:30 at night. So, in the space of these few days, I've had to totally reverse my bodyclock while still working. Put that in with some of the long duty days that we do (some are up to 11 hours and 30 minutes already!) and it doesn't take a genius to work out that tiredness is going to accumulate at a really rapid rate. If I take how I am at the start of a week at the moment, compared to where I am at the end of the week - my flying at the end of the week is a lot less consistent, I make silly mistakes that are totally avoidable and invariably, it will be on the last day of the week when a situation arises that requires a thought process... like a go around due to the airport closing.
Now, if I'm that worn out in the first place, imagine that the duty I've just done had been increased by a factor of whatever percent EASA are advocating...
A simple question of maths means that what would normally be a situation that I could manage well enough, could very soon become a dangerous situation.
At the end of the day, safety can have no comprimise. And middle level management will only realise this when it's far too late. And I bet that all of the bonuses for "excellent performance" will dry up too - along with the whole operations of the airline.
I do my job with the aim of getting from A to B, taking a plane load of passengers, and doing it safely while always considering operational circumstances. Something that every pilot out there would agree with and something that is enscribed into every professional pilot from day 1 of training. These rules will destroy this element. You probably think we sit there fat, dumb and happy... Just consider this for two minutes: when the weather is bad (as in the video from Black and Brown), you've had a crap sleep, your girlfriend is threatening to leave you as you haven't seen them in god knows how long, and you're struggling to make ends meet this month as several large bills came along all at once, how do you think you'd feel?
Come and follow us in our jobs for a week. I dare you. And then we'll see who deserves the bonuses... and it isn't those who sit there and think up new ways to reap the crop of Human Resources.