It's nearly 5 years since I quit the airline to the south of Dubai . I was 62 , 3 years to retirement , generally happy with where I was etc , but the flying and rostering finally got to me .
The FTL were adhered to , everything was ' Legal' , but the bulk of the flying , for expats anyway , was 0100 checkin / departures for India etc , returning at 1000 , usually followed by another same duty that night , and sometimes yet another after that ( which I never did ) . The premise was that your rest period would be spent by going to bed at 1130 and sleeping like a baby until 2300 and returning to work completely refreshed . Circadian rhythms were not to be considered . If you managed two lots of 2-3 hours sleep that was your problem , the airline had provided you with the opportunity to sleep all day !
I , and another 62 year old went to management and requested job share , which would have given them 1200 hours of Captain flying for the price of 900 . We were point blank refused as they thought us cunning expats were pulling a fast one somehow . My colleague succumbed to a fatal stroke at the controls while performing another dawn landing at Jaipur a few months later . My resignation followed the next day , to,protests that the company doctors had assured them that the pestering had NOTHING to do with my friends death . It was all legal you see .