There was a post made on here a few minutes ago by Paul Miles, the author of the Telegraph article that angered so many of us because of the STN taxi drivers claims about intoxicated pilots.
Whilst I can understand everyones anger, I do not need you all laying into the journalist on here, especially if he has come forward and asked a question that needs clarification. Yes, he was out of order for the article that was published in the Telegraph travel section but maybe, just maybe, he has seen the error of his ways and decided to do a bit more in depth research before his next article. Either way, I believe that we should give him the benefit of the doubt and provide him with some assistance.
If you don't want to help then by all means refrain but just heaping abuse on here isn't going to happen. The post was deleted while I was reading it, probably by the author. In an effort to try and get it resuscitated I managed to keep a copy of the post and I will reproduce it below sans the insults.
hackhack
Press enquiry - fatigue and new EC ruling
Hello
I am a UK journalist. I write for a national UK paper.
I'm trying to understand the new EC ruling on flight and duty time, it seems very complex.
Are there any pilots who either:
1. Strongly object to
2. Don't mind/agree with
the new ruling?
If so, and you would like to comment, please contact me. And/or if you have accounts of personal experiences of fatigue due to long flying times, I would also like to hear.
If you reply, please do so with your full name, title, airline and where you live. If you wish to remain anonymous, please let me know. A contact phone number would be very useful.
Thank you
Paul Miles
The first reply was by
Cathar
The first thing to understand is that there is no new EC ruling. There is a European Parliament first reading amendment of a draft Regulation on operational standards for airlines. The amendment adds flight and duty time limits to the requirement. The draft regulation (including the amendment) has to go through the full co-decision procedure including endorsement by the Council before it becomes EC legislation. It is by no means a forgone conclusion that the amendment will be adopted and, from what I have heard, it is exceedingly unlikely be adopted without further amendment.
Still why worry about the truth.
And the third reply was by
Unwiseowl
BALPA should be able to provide you with the facts:
www.balpa.org
Can we now return to answering some of the questions for this journalist and see if he can redeem himself in our eyes and use his journalistic education to put our worries about the proposed rules into some sort of sense that the public can understand. All we need is him getting another easyJet manager to quote that we only work 750 hours a year to seal the perception that non pilots have about our lives of leisure!