Have any of you guys ever worked for a decent airline?

[wapses]

From reading the stuff posted on here you would have to presume that the Gulf airlines are the worst in the world in terms of the way they treat their pilots.

EK don't treat their pilots right; don't even think of joining QR; GF don't know what they're doing; EY management is lining their own pockets and crews be damned.

I know none of these airlines are exactly perfect employers, but are all of them really as bad as you guys make out?

My theory is that many of you have got just too much time on your hands. so what do you do? Have a cluster-moan. Sitting for hours on the flight deck with not a lot to do ... let's see how many things we can find to complain about. Hanging around in bars down-route ... let's discuss what don't we like about our airline?

It it's really that bad why don't you go find work at the perfect airline .. or is such an employer a figment of your imaginations?

Don't get me wrong, we all have things to complain about concerning senior management at our companies. But you guys appear to have made an art form of it!

[Bidalot]

well, would say just don't feed the troll
:ugh:

[ManaAdaSystem]

Well wapses, you hit that nail squarely on its head, but now you have given the whiners something extra to whine about.

[GoreTex]

EK would be great if they would stick to the contract I signed over a decade ago

[Patty747400]

Show me one airline that hasn't changed the T&C:s for the last decade? Agree that in the "civilised" world it usually happens through negotiations but in the end it's the same result. Less pay for more work. EK is not alone in that respect.

[nolimitholdem]

hahahah a variation on the old "well all airlines have their problems so Emirates only sucks about the same" whine!

Keep it up you management dickheads, you still have no clue. If you think all that's happening is whining, your denial skills are standing you in good stead.

Thank god the clock is ticking....

There are airlines I've worked for that had worse pay and conditions. But they never pretended to be anything different. Emirates is the worst of the worst in that regard: built completely on lies and more lies.

[Fubaliera]

Lets no burst the idiots bubble. Lets tell them all this is the promise land.

[Wizofoz]

Worked for a FANTASTIC airline for 12 years.

Well payed, quick promotion, didn't work too hard (but got paid even more if you did).

Of course, it went broke......

NLH, do I read that as you being out of here?

Congrats if so, it OBVIOUSLY wasn't working for you!

Heading back to Canuk land?

[noise of freedom]

Well I worked for a decent airline in Europe until it collapsed because of mis management.
Now I work for QR and I never ever felt so depressed and humiliated.
This people just take advantage of the worldwide crisis to treat you like in the middle age,like a slave with basically no rights.
They ammend the rules at their own convenience,wasting a huge amount of money,qatari money just because rather then keeping the people here they attract them,train them,treat them like SH:mad::mad::mad: and then fired them for reasons like....a glass of evian,
WELCOME TO QATAR!!!!

[Saturn]

Exactly the same treatment.:ugh:

[wapses]

I am not suggesting that things are not bad at these airlines, but surely before you joined you read some of the stuff on here, talked to friends, or friends of friends. They would all have given you a dose of reality. And yet still you came. I think you were probably warned.

I have never ever in my life read so much whingeing.

Now I see a thread saying that things are so bad at QR it cannot go on much longer. If you look back eight years you will find threads saying exactly the same thing. But guess who is still CEO? Guess which airline has gained and maintained "five star" status?

You may as well face up to reality. As long as it's possible to find pilots you will be treated badly at the Gulf airlines. If you leave there'll be more to replace you. Only when demand for pilots outstrips supply will they have to wake up by which time will it be too late?

[crazyplane123]

Do you know where the WORST management of ANY industry ends up? IN THE AIRLINES. they got the biggest idiots running them, and some of the airlines manage to generate profit with this bunch of inepts, imagine if they would run it like they should!!!. just amazing!.:sad::sad:

[Wizofoz]

Er, yeah...

All the GODD managers went to Lehman Brothers......

[nolimitholdem]

wapses,

Didn't anyone warn you about PPRune? Surely some friends, or friends of friends, told you that not all of the postings about EK are about how working there makes one fart sunshine? Surely you could have avoided offending your delicate sensibilities with the simple measure of not reading. And yet you still read it! I think you were probably warned.

Never in my life have I seen such hand-wringing at whingeing!

You may as well face up to reality. As long as things are sucky somewhere, there will be people to talk about it. And if they leave there will just be more to replace them.

And on it goes...the circle of life. But thanks for the advice. Hope it works as well for you.

Wizzy,

My musing was more philosophical...the clock is ticking for all of us...one day, you too will be worm food...sooner rather than later as you'll still be crossing a million timezones getting radiated long after I've turned my back...

:}

[kiwi]

Acually wapses, yes I used to work for a decent airline, and not very long ago. It is called Emirates!
It was about five or six years ago that if anybody attacked EK it was the EK pilot's who jumped on here to the company's defence. Very few EK pilot's made derogatory remarks about the company and most suggested their friends come along to interview for what was a very fine job and great company to work for!
Yes things have changed here extremely for the worse, in particular unsafe, unsustainable flight and duty times which are condoned by a regulator who appears to rubberstamp anything EK want combined with (for the first time since I arrived here) outright breaches of the written contract.
With a management culture that treats the flight deck crew as if we are the "enemy" and show little respect to their flying staff (Pilot's and Flight Attendants) as well as some fine Engineers, yes I strongly believe that the EK pilot's (and some other staff) have a genuine reason to feel extremely aggrieved about how things have turned out, particularly since the MEL incident.
I do however agree that those who have joined in the last five years have had plenty of evidence to have made a different decision.
My view for what it's worth:(

[jinglied]

Kiwi is 100% on. This place was decent a few years ago. I told friends to come join us. Not any more.

Jinglie'd

[a345xxx]

i have worked for a pretty decent outfit many years .... it was in the east! :)

[Old King Coal]

wapses - you wrote: "Guess which airline has gained and maintained "five star" status?"

The most typical description of what defines such an airline is as follows:5 Star Ranking : The 'ultimate' ranking, awarded to airlines achieving the highest Quality performance. 5 Star status recognizes airlines at the forefront of product and service delivery achievement, that generally set trends to be followed by other carriers. This Ranking is assessed by SKYTRAX after detailed Product and Service standards analysis for each featured airline, and is NOT connected in any way to customer ratings across the Forum pages on this site.

A 5 Star ranking recognises highest standard of Product across the different quality assessment categories, and consistently high standards of Staff Service delivery in Onboard and Airport environments.But the truth is that such 'awards' are usually given out by a self-serving 'Awards Industry' and are often, to a greater or lesser extend, meaningless, being nothing more than a front for market research and / or advertising companies, often commissioned by the said same 'awarded' airlines themselves!

Click this link to see an example of a company that gives awards to airlines: SKYTRAX WORLD AIRLINE AWARDS™ (http://www.worldairlineawards.com/)

And now click this link to see some of that same companies clients: SKYTRAX RESEARCH (http://www.skytraxresearch.com/General/clients.htm)

Uhm, did I perhaps hear someone shouting "Conflict of interest" ?!!

Of course airline CEO's love these 'Awards' as it seemingly serves to legitimize their tenure, gets their name up in lights and (not least of all ) provides them with a great excuse to attend various swanky functions, usually overseas (with all expenses paid Business Class travel, of course! = junket?!! ) in order to go an collect these said same 'awards' !

An analogy might be that you own a big glitzy castle (paid for by the oil well in your back garden). You decide to hold party and invite many paying guests. You promote this party via your favorite promotions company, 'Top Class Castles Inc ™'.…. a company which highly values your patronage and whom decides to make a big show its appreciation of your business by presenting you with an 'award' for hosting yet another five star party (well they would say that, wouldn't they?!).

I should perhaps add that the bloke from 'Top Class Castles Inc ™' will, of course, write some glowing BS in various trade magazines wrt how wonderous was the '5 star' party in your castle and that 'Top Class Castles Inc ™' has therein deemed it appropriate to award you with a 'Gold + Extra Bling' award (whilst also gently reminding you that you need to renew your subscription to the membership of the 'Top Class Castles Inc ™' group of associated companies... click link that link above to see some examples.... as well as reminding you that they also have lots of different, but basically the same, 'Awards' coming up too = more junkets for you!! ;) ).

Somewhat needless to say, the bloke from 'Top Class Castles Inc ™' will make no mention of the way that you treat your staff, and / or that many of them are employed via something that's more akin servitude than anything else, and that if the opportunity was available (which you know it's not) your staff would be off like a shot… but, and until then, you will continue to treat them with contempt and will continue to erode & abuse their employment contract to which you feel only loosely beholden (and, as far as you are concerned, beatings will continue until moral improves).... it's certainly not in the interest of any 'trade organisation' to bite the hand that feeds it (= advertising revenues, market research fees, etc) is it?!
Likewise, the paying guests at your party will have left none the wiser as to what goes on within your castle wrt the staff.

So it's all good news then, init?! :E

[jbayfan]

I work for the best airline in the world and have the best job in the world. It makes me sick to see how other airlines treat their pilots and many EK pilots once worked for the airline I work for.

The reason we have it so good is that we have a strong union and a country with very liberal labour laws PLUS we all stick together. Our pilot group of 800 pilots are like a big family and we watch each other's backs.

Our pay and benefits must rank as being within the top 3 of all airlines globally and our benefits may even rank first. We have modern aircraft and a limited but diversified route structure with great destinations. We stay at 4 or 5 star hotels that our union helps to select, a proper and fair monthly bidding system and 40 days leave a year.

All I can think about, when we're cruising at FL410 and the subject of how lucky we are to be working for our airline comes up as it often does, is how our former colleagues made the decision to leave this airline to chase a command or perceived higher pay only to get shafted in the long term. Some left for other reasons and I hope they feel that they made the right choice, but I doubt it.

They say the grass always looks greener on the other side, but there ain't no grass in the desert!!

[Bidalot]

@jbayfan... holy ****. you must be an astronaut, right ?? Now watch the WC finals to chill down.

[wapses]

OLD KING COAL

Tend to agree with you about these awards. Probably all fixed. And you're right, tell an airline they've won an award and they'll be all over you like a rash. Something to crow about, however meaningless.

Went to the World Travel Awards a few years back. The event had "scam" written all over it.

[Schibulsky]

Only know of 2 Lufthansa guys ever leave for the sand pit (for private reasons)...looks like there are still some decent ones around...

[fullforward]

We are the only culprits for this situation: I can´t imagine a professional group as selfish, as individualized, as egocentric, as futile as ourselves.
We are even worst than lawyers!
We sell ourselves to cheap!!!:ugh:

[saywhat]

Yip. We all worked for decent airlines. They all went bankrupt.....

Perhaps there's a common denominator there somewhere?:confused:

[fractional]

Let's ask for "Paul's" help by placing boxes of as many Gulf airlines as possible to see what the beast does. I think "Paul" will get very angry because he may starve. Just trying to lighten this sad story.

[Slopwith]

Yes I have worked for good airlines which is how I know EY is going down the tubes.
Just seen a mail in which JH praises Staff for their achievements yet apparently he thinks losing 600 CC since November is good as it keeps them fresh and keen. I would have thought that was another expense-you train them, house them, give them uniforms then get rid of them. Most airlines and indeed companies try and recognise that their staff is their biggest asset. Go figure!

[jbayfan]

@jbayfan... holy ****. you must be an astronaut, right ?? Now watch the WC finals to chill down.

I'm chilled! Seems like you're the one that's hot under the collar.

This thread asked the question, I gave my answer - what's the problem with that?

[ManaAdaSystem]

The problem is you are happy. Nobody here can stand to hear that.