And if some pilots are leaving, if one can provide why are they leaving and for which air carriers are they leaving for if known.
babydash_83
Many pilots have left over the last couple of years, I am one of them. I moved up around 50 places per year on the seniority list, which gives you an idea of the turnover. Americans returning to the majors, Brits moving to Ryanair, Jet2 and B.A., Cypriots joining Ryanair at Paphos, etc.
As for the reasons for leaving, I can’t speak for everyone, but the common theme with just about all who had resigned or were planning to leave (myself included) was the dreadful rostering. Plan on 80-90 block hours per month, and if you regard that as industry standard, bear in mind that for junior guys, duty hours will be more like 150hrs per month. Expect lots of deep night flights, random switching between day and night flying, single days off, and rest periods that are regularly between 18 and 30hrs – in spite of what is written in the company OM’A’. Standby duties invariably become a mystery flight to somewhere horrible, often in the dead of night. You will also have the delights of deadheading sectors – possibly 4hrs plus at the back of a packed economy cabin – prior to operating back to DXB.
Put all that together, month after month, and you get fatigue. I’ve experienced it during deep night flying, and it’s bloody frightening. In my time there, fatigue ASRs were averaging 20+ per month, and - assuming you could get a response from those responsible for the roster – they would either try and blame the bidding system or shrug their shoulders and tell you “it’s legal captain.”
Another issue for me was training, or rather lack of it. FZ has some brilliant individual trainers, but the culture – from the highest level – seemed to assume that possession of the 737 FCOM & FCTM meant you should consider yourself trained. There is no extra training given for places like Kabul; you are expected to read the brief and just get on with it. Recurrent sims often focus much more on testing than training.
No doubt at the interview you were asked if you’d be prepared to fly to war zones, and no doubt you said ‘yes’, else you wouldn’t be offered a job. However, the least you could expect is that the company has your back covered with security matters, and I have seen plenty of evidence to suggest that is not the case. To pick just one example, a proactive security department would not have allowed an aircraft to land in Sana’a and promptly be surrounded by armed rebels, leaving the crew to try and negotiate their way out of the situation.
In my opinion, given the punishing rosters, the fatigue, the mediocre training and the ‘adventurous’ attitude to risk, the holes were all lining up, and it was only a matter of time before something really nasty happened. One of the saddest aspects of the crash was that it came as no surprise to me, or many of my colleagues. I made the decision to leave last year, when my wife asked me if a destination I was about to fly to was safe, and I couldn’t honestly answer yes. The tax free salary and five-star lifestyle count for very little if you're constantly knackered and don’t feel safe when you go to work. Having escaped, I am now at a very different airline, whose safety and training standards are as good as anyone in the world, and the contrast with what I’ve just left could not be starker.
I seriously doubt the company culture at FZ will ever change.