P1L0T
12th Feb 2008, 15:30
I have been recent months in Thailand and had chance to listened to the saga of Skyeye from their [now ex-] crew members. All of them that I know are gone now so I looked to entertain myself with "L1011 Skyeyes" on google.com and pprune.org but there is not so much info there. Their websites look like it was updated about 2004 and talks about passenger airplane coming in 2005 and pprune has some talk about owner of aircraft and Thai operator and Bangladesh investor and so on but no clear warning what mess it really is. Lot of Thai operators get the attention they deserve but this one seems the worst.
They are still looking for pilots, so here is what I know starting from more one year ago.
The aircraft (they have only one L1011 freighter) returned from a Bahrain-Baghdad contract and was parked in Rayong with no flying in 2004. There was one contract that failed in 2005/2006 because it had to return after complete INS failures two times and contract cancelled (this according to captain on those flights). About one year ago Skyeyes got a contract with one Mr. Sabir from Bangladesh to fly out of UAE. A crew was hired and the plane went to UAE where they were soon kicked out because their equipment did not meet UAE requirements (EGPWS and other?) and it went to Oman where the crews stayed for months while the equipment was installed. During this time the salary started getting behind. Aircraft finally returned to UAE but little or no flying. Salary more late.
In September they finally flew, but was then grounded [for technical problems?] in Kyrgystan on the way to China. The customer had to get the service from another operator, Mr. Sabir's ex-partner Dwayne Egle, now in direct competition in UAE. Due to payment (hotels, landing fees, cost of replacement service) problems the crew was in house arrest for 3 weeks before the plane could leave for Bangkok where it had to go due to Thai CAA requirement. In BKK the captain packed his bags and left. The aircraft has only flow twice since.
Crew was promised to pay after first flight. This changed to "after next flight". This time also another crew was hired [for a plane that was not flying] and trained (some say not) and Mr. Sabir promised to start paying salary directly but it got worse. After a while original FE was fired for causing trouble (demanding all his pay $12000). They replaced him with Sunny's (Skyeye owner) Thai relative for less money. Another FE was also brought to BKK. He was promised 5 thousand a month then told 4 when he arrived. He left after first pay day (no pay) to work for another Thai operator (B747). Two new captains and one FO were hired. First captain left for a better job after a month but the second one (same captain as 2 years before) flew a test flight for Thai DCA in October. The flight was incomplete due to serious mechanical failures in most systems. Captain left saying nothing was fixed since 2 years before plus a ton of new problems.
As cost cutting [as it would take a lot of time and money to fix the plane clearly] the original FO was fired when he went home on family affairs (they let him get home first) because he was making trouble with his $8000 back pay and Thai FE was sent back to his farm (real) on no pay. And no pay for anyone.
End of december they flew the last time to Cambodia [and back!]. They hired one more captain and the only reason they got back to BKK was that he wanted to leave so badly. Next morning he was gone saying he will never touch that aircraft. FO disappeared a week later so the only crew they got is Thai FE sitting on his farm waiting for call to work. The plane is still in BKK and not flying or fixed.
Maintenance on this aircraft is a joke and has not been done right for many years. It has many issues and should not be flying. One of the the engines is about to go. Many engine instruments are not working. Fuel gauges are not working. New EGPWS does not work. Only one INS. GPS is dead. No gear safe lights. Many tyres out of limit. Nose tires damaged due to high speed reverse fail and wrong action by captain. Spoiler on right side sticking intermittent in flying and airplane needs a lot of trim. Bleed leaks and pack overheats. Pressurisation only manual. Autopilot are both inop. And many other problems I was told but can not remember sure. They have 2 mechanics from Egypt who seem not to know what they are doing but they rarely work on and anyway there is no spare parts even if this Sabir says he paid a lot to Sunny for spares.
But now it gets worse. Mr. Sabir and his Rack Aviation Emirates is planning to buy 3 more Tristars (1freight/2passenger) from Thaisky that are parked in DMK (old BKK airport). His competition Mr. Egle had a new lease contract signed for the freighter and was having work done on it when Sabir offered to buy all 3 planes from owner and this deal cancelled. The condition of these planes is also in question and he plans to register them in Bangladesh. He already has a B707 registered there and flying in Africa. It is not clear what he plans for all these aircraft as not even the one is flying.
So beware if you get a job offer as you will get your first pay cut when you arrive and the second when you don't get paid on time. One month late is best you can expect. Then you will fly some most dangerous planes in the world for this money. You will also not get a work permit or any support if things go wrong for you. Remember that just 4 crew that I know lost more than $30000 between them. If anyone takes a chance then they can only blame themself.
They are still looking for pilots, so here is what I know starting from more one year ago.
The aircraft (they have only one L1011 freighter) returned from a Bahrain-Baghdad contract and was parked in Rayong with no flying in 2004. There was one contract that failed in 2005/2006 because it had to return after complete INS failures two times and contract cancelled (this according to captain on those flights). About one year ago Skyeyes got a contract with one Mr. Sabir from Bangladesh to fly out of UAE. A crew was hired and the plane went to UAE where they were soon kicked out because their equipment did not meet UAE requirements (EGPWS and other?) and it went to Oman where the crews stayed for months while the equipment was installed. During this time the salary started getting behind. Aircraft finally returned to UAE but little or no flying. Salary more late.
In September they finally flew, but was then grounded [for technical problems?] in Kyrgystan on the way to China. The customer had to get the service from another operator, Mr. Sabir's ex-partner Dwayne Egle, now in direct competition in UAE. Due to payment (hotels, landing fees, cost of replacement service) problems the crew was in house arrest for 3 weeks before the plane could leave for Bangkok where it had to go due to Thai CAA requirement. In BKK the captain packed his bags and left. The aircraft has only flow twice since.
Crew was promised to pay after first flight. This changed to "after next flight". This time also another crew was hired [for a plane that was not flying] and trained (some say not) and Mr. Sabir promised to start paying salary directly but it got worse. After a while original FE was fired for causing trouble (demanding all his pay $12000). They replaced him with Sunny's (Skyeye owner) Thai relative for less money. Another FE was also brought to BKK. He was promised 5 thousand a month then told 4 when he arrived. He left after first pay day (no pay) to work for another Thai operator (B747). Two new captains and one FO were hired. First captain left for a better job after a month but the second one (same captain as 2 years before) flew a test flight for Thai DCA in October. The flight was incomplete due to serious mechanical failures in most systems. Captain left saying nothing was fixed since 2 years before plus a ton of new problems.
As cost cutting [as it would take a lot of time and money to fix the plane clearly] the original FO was fired when he went home on family affairs (they let him get home first) because he was making trouble with his $8000 back pay and Thai FE was sent back to his farm (real) on no pay. And no pay for anyone.
End of december they flew the last time to Cambodia [and back!]. They hired one more captain and the only reason they got back to BKK was that he wanted to leave so badly. Next morning he was gone saying he will never touch that aircraft. FO disappeared a week later so the only crew they got is Thai FE sitting on his farm waiting for call to work. The plane is still in BKK and not flying or fixed.
Maintenance on this aircraft is a joke and has not been done right for many years. It has many issues and should not be flying. One of the the engines is about to go. Many engine instruments are not working. Fuel gauges are not working. New EGPWS does not work. Only one INS. GPS is dead. No gear safe lights. Many tyres out of limit. Nose tires damaged due to high speed reverse fail and wrong action by captain. Spoiler on right side sticking intermittent in flying and airplane needs a lot of trim. Bleed leaks and pack overheats. Pressurisation only manual. Autopilot are both inop. And many other problems I was told but can not remember sure. They have 2 mechanics from Egypt who seem not to know what they are doing but they rarely work on and anyway there is no spare parts even if this Sabir says he paid a lot to Sunny for spares.
But now it gets worse. Mr. Sabir and his Rack Aviation Emirates is planning to buy 3 more Tristars (1freight/2passenger) from Thaisky that are parked in DMK (old BKK airport). His competition Mr. Egle had a new lease contract signed for the freighter and was having work done on it when Sabir offered to buy all 3 planes from owner and this deal cancelled. The condition of these planes is also in question and he plans to register them in Bangladesh. He already has a B707 registered there and flying in Africa. It is not clear what he plans for all these aircraft as not even the one is flying.
So beware if you get a job offer as you will get your first pay cut when you arrive and the second when you don't get paid on time. One month late is best you can expect. Then you will fly some most dangerous planes in the world for this money. You will also not get a work permit or any support if things go wrong for you. Remember that just 4 crew that I know lost more than $30000 between them. If anyone takes a chance then they can only blame themself.