At the DPA AGM it was reported that Dragonair pilots are the highest industry claimants for loss of license insurance. It's all random, no clusters evidently.
Our medical scheme could be partly to blame. If you have the DPA's advised extra cover, you get your choice of good medical care. I've seen guys go through the panel system ( which is far more limited than CX ) and end up with a lot of complications. That said, and it's a typical unrealised madness as we rapidly approach minimum crewing levels, our cheap medical scheme seems to be a great way of getting a lot of time off work as you join the queue for medical care. And anecdotally, incorrect diagnosis and treatments not uncommon with our back-street clinics.
The illness rates at KA also make a mockery of the CX pilot they sent over to deskill and drive inefficiencies into our operation with purposeless SOPs, who claimed fatigue is non-existent at KA. Sure, if you fly once a week with a gentleman's sign-on and with every effort made to avoid flying into China, your perspective of the KA operation is slewed a long way from the realities.
Perhaps the managers coming back on the line will help crewing levels a little but it seems we are training for attrition despite a training manager claiming all was A - OK a month back ! Maybe he will have a fresher perspective as a line driver. Advertised command vacancies don't seem to correspond with the odd congratulatory comment of a 4 Bar promotion on the weekly flyer. And if you add to that the resignations and broken bodies after about July and we are full steam ahead for a crewing crisis.
Last edited by Gnadenburg; 14th May 2017 at 11:27.