Attitude, from management, can be everything. It needs to fair & honest. They demand loyalty and unquestionable obedience. It needs earning. If they want pliable 'yes men' then they should change their recruitment criteria. If you employ well educated team/crew problem solving and problem avoiding leaders you should expect individuals who have questioning minds with some resistance to utter BS & disrespect. The vocational aspect of being a pilot has been abused for too long.
I worked for a young growing LoCo where the MD, CP & head of rostering all disliked pilots. There was supposedly an open-door policy, but that seemed to be only if you were invited, usually tea no biscuits. All touchy feely publicly, quite different out of sight.
At recruitment the CP told me they produced the required productivity in 14-16 days/28 of a random roster. I suggested that this meant 12-14 days off/28. This was not denied and I joined up. I then found head of rostering operated a max 8 days off/28 policy as that was the limit. CP had no authority over rostering????? It was a con. The consequence of this was that you could not have extra days off. Duty days were filled in by totally unnecessary SBY's. There were even days of taxying to one airport A, pax-ing to another airport B, flying a single sector to airport C then taxying back to your start point, all so you didn't have an extra day off. CP denied aircrews worked shifts. Office staff had only 8 days off, so why not pilots.
I suspect that those pilots who work fixed 5-3/5-4/5-4/5-3 etc. must have, especially in the shoulder & winter months, many unnecessary SBY's. That is ridiculous particularly if you are away from home at some distant base. Demoralising in extreme: and at one airline all for no pay, but at your own expense. Limits are indeed targets.
It's time this attitude changed.
Last edited by RAT 5; 24th Sep 2016 at 10:25.