Originally Posted by
framer
When it gets to the point that long serving, responsible and mature employees are walking around in a daze, getting grumpy at their spouses and kids, using their annual leave to recuperate at home so that they feel they can cope with facing the alarm clock again, constantly talking about how they can get to a point financially where they can change jobs and their families won't suffer, and openly talking about concerns for their long term health.......we have a problem. Not to mention the degraded performance that can be expected in high workload situations and how that impacts on the safety of the passengers.
The pilots know it, the sleep specialists know it, the wives know it, and management can't comprehend it because the roster report says you only did 180 hours duty in the whole month. All the people involved in making the rules, administering them, creating the rosters, choosing the number of pilots required to fit a schedule, conducting medical exams........none of them actually roll out of bed and do it, not for a year or a month or a week or a day. They are however highly motivated to get fewer pilots flying more hours offering cheaper tickets to a greater market share.
Spot on Framer. Now on day 3 of my vacation I have yet to get out of the house and do something meaningful. Arriving from a long-haul flight on Monday, my total block hours YTD equal hours flown in the last 2 years in late September, same outfit, same flying, very short of pilots.
Add to that the fact that almost all my flights are as Line Instructor, and half the time I feel I do not have much to share with the trainee. I am just there.