Horrible roster Again and no leave !!!!

[ektrazz]

Min days off 90 hrs plus again , all through the night again ! Thats not adding the Sim 2 nights in a row either.
Asia up and down east east east .
I am so tired , no leave

thanks EK

[BizJetJockey]

What exactly are you trying to establish? This is nothing new but it's tricky to offer an opinion or advice without knowing more facts. Are you bizjets or airlines?

[highflyer40]

huh. he did say "thanks EK"??

[Voodoo 3]

Maybe this is not the reply you had in mind but…..

LHS September roster for Flydubai,

9/10 flights requested, 16 OFF days, nine of those in a row. One flight after midnight (the unrequested one), earliest report 0700.

Guess seniority at least does count for something here.

[BizJetJockey]

Oh yeah...ha! Didn't see that...this kind of complaining is normally saved for bizjet guys!!

[These seats are hard]

Hi I'm 2nd bottom so didn't expect much and they didn't disappoint me. Im looking at swapping but rosters are so tight its says no due business rules. I cannot believe how crap it is becoming max 3 days off in a row . I wasn't looking around but will be slowly opening one eye.

[Oscar84]

How many are minimum days off for you in Ek? 8? 10?
How many trips?
Wich fleet?

[Oldaircrew]

I feel bad bitching.

10 days leave, 13 days off. WTF? 2 Sydney direct and I can't swap either of them for AKL flights due to business rules or ground duties( apparently SBU is a ground duty). How stupid is this place?

[Rim-job]

EK rosters are getting worse and worse...

Top bid group and i got nothing i asked for. Yet a few months back when i was 2nd bottom and middle... I got reasonable trips. Not ones i asked for but reasonable nonetheless interns of .

This rostering is a disaster. It's a complete crap shoot. One month I think i have it figured out. Next month I bid the same (but I'm a group higher) yet it comes out like nothing i had month prior.

What a joke... my time here is limited. It just gets worse by the day. :ugh:

[Mister Warning]

February 3 weeks leave - 8 days at work and 49 hours. WTF??
Crewing response.....it's legal.
Dialled 2..... does that still work? ;)
Good luck boys and girls....

[Schnowzer]

Yep 2nd top got my "only bid for them coz I don't want to go to China bids". For days off only got one of the 4 I requested. Load of bollocks really but will keep smiling, another month closer to retirement!

[mooseknuckles]

Middle bid, 9 days off, 10 turns, 2 crap Africa layovers and sim. Got nothing I bid for. Awesome. Spring can't come soon enough.

[ektrazz]

Its just every month non stop !
When I dont have a day off between 2 LR flights of which both are through the night while i am still recovering from my US jetlag it becomes hard.

Invest in a fitbit and see how bad your sleep really is .You can have graphs on your phone and you will just be shocked.

People may argue and say leave if you dont like it , which is true . But one ,its not what i signed up for ,years ago. I signed a good contract which was i could sustain till retirement . Two I dont have days off to go to another interview ! And C the flights are jam packed , so also not possible.

I am doing over 90 hrs this month and I did not include my 2 midnight sim slots or ground school day. I signed up to be paid extra after 78 hrs , but some English leech in the office sending out emails about **** flight bags pockets the money we all work hard for .


I dont have any leave in the 2014 cycle only some 10 days next year . I signed up to have 42 days of leave , at least 30 days in a row and every second year summer or xmas . Once again that gone , all i see is leave rejected all the time.

No off days , I signed up that in top bid you can at least have 14 days in a row and this way you could at least see you family or something back home , now max 3 days in a row.

Asked in a wash up , why could we not then at least have 2 anual leave tickets seeing that the flights are so full and our leave is such a mess. The answer ... Not in the company s interest ... Nice .

So we take away your over time every month .. stealing in other words a few thousand DHS off all the guys , Cannot really go home as flights are so full.

People get into depression here and its not healthy on families as you are always tired (for no reward) hence more snappy .. Many pilots are being caught drinking and i feel sorry for these guys as they feel depressed and looking for a desperate escape .
Looking back I am so angry at myself for coming here .All the lies ,all the penny pinching on our backs.

What a sad unhappy place this has become . Even new guys i fly with cannot believe the mistake they have made.
Good luck out there and fly safe .

[kungfu panda]

You need to social network and organize a 10 minute strike if there are really enough of you guys that feel strongly about the deterioration of your contracts. There is no point to whinging on pprune.

[Avid Aviator]

but yet the que is long for, I wanna "shiny new aircraft type"..

A year ago maybe, but not so much now.
Talking to a recruiting guy recently, said they are filling the courses but only just now - no pool anymore and the barrel is getting shallower.

V3 - do Fly Dubai bid straight seniority or rotating? Just curious.

[Panther 88]

EKTRAZZ, come on mate, quit the whinging. You do get the privilege of working for EK and living in Dubai. That in itself should satisfy any Profesional pilot...well that's what THEY believe anyway.

[Voodoo 3]

Hi Avid,

Here at FZ it is a straight seniority bidding system. Therefore people who joined way back at the beginning of the company do tend to get the pick of the trips (long day trips) and almost everything that they ask for. We have only had the bidding system in place since October last year (for pilots anyway, cabin crew may get it later this year), and so for the four and a half years before that the company was operating the rosters were all done by a rostering team with with no 'credit' if you like given to seniority.

Subsequently those that join more recently have compained that it is grossly unfair and that they will probably do most of the night flying and to the more unpopular trips such as Afghanistan, India during monsoon, double GCC sectors etc. To a degree that is true but what i think they fail to grasp is that with our expansion plans and the rate at which we are taking aircraft is that you will not stay junior for very long and as new aircraft arrive, people will arrive below you and so your seniority will rise and then they will be able to bid for better flights. Even now pilots at all seniority levels can bid up for eight requested days off a month (used to be just two RDO's!!!!) but can end up rostered with significantly more off days than that than that, 20 OFF in a month is the best i have seen so far.

Judging by the comments above it does seem as a rolling seniority system does not work too well as people in top bid receive almost nothing they want and bottom bids seem to get more than other months, a curious set up and also the rules on swapping seem so tight that there is very little manoeuvre on that.

Well thats the system we have and so far for the most part for many people here it does appear to be working and an awful lot better than what we had before. Must not forget too that must like an FMC, what you get out of the bidding process is only as good as what you put in the first place.:ok:

[kingpost]

Voodoo3, it's because the leadership at FZ is a lot different - for the better that is!!

[ManaAdaSystem]

The top guys in FZ are being rewarded for their hard work during the first years of FZ operation.
I remember all the complaints of only 50-60 block hours back then...

[what-to-do]

Personally, I think it simply a case whereby, if FZ management didn't do something about the rosters, we were heading for a big retention problem. Not sure it's a case of having better management......

[BigGeordie]

If the FZ management saw a problem coming and did something about it before it had an impact on the operation then that is better management than we have at EK.

[Old King Coal]

Fwiw, whilst being an admittedly very high bid FZ Captain, my schedule (following some thoughtful bidding) through to the end of October looks as follows:

24/09 - RestDay
25/09 - DayOff
26/09 - Afternoon Flight (medium)
27/09 - DayOff
28/09 - DayOff
29/09 - DayOff
30/09 - DayOff
-----------------
01/10 - DayOff
02/10 - DayOff
03/10 - DayOff
04/10 - DayOff
05/10 - DayOff
06/10 - Day Flight (long)
07/10 - DayOff
08/10 - Day Flight (long)
09/10 - DayOff
10/10 - DayOff
11/10 - Day Flight (long)
12/10 - DayOff
13/10 - DayOff
14/10 - DayOff
15/10 - DayOff
16/10 - DayOff
17/10 - Day Flight (long)
18/10 - Afternoon Flight (medium)
19/10 - RestDay
20/10 - Day Flight (medium)
21/10 - DayOff
22/10 - Day Flight (medium)
23/10 - DayOff
24/10 - Day Flight (medium)
25/10 - DayOff
26/10 - DayOff
27/10 - DayOff
28/10 - DayOff
29/10 - Leave (2 weeks; to be followed by 4x 'Requested DayOff')

With one exception (flight on 24/10) I got everything that I bid for. Plus that I get to sleep every night in my own bed, and have zero jet lag!

This time last year, Big JimV & KennyG (our FltOps VP's over at FZ) saw a problem coming and headed it off at the pass, with implementation of with PBS! :D:ok::D:ok::D:ok:

[ManaAdaSystem]

Where I work, if I don't go to work, somebody else will have to.
If I don't do any night flights, somebody else will have to fly them.

I wonder if FZ have solved anything for the majority of the pilots, or just helped a few?

Time will tell.

[Craggenmore]

I received nothing I bid for this month and didn't appreciate the manual insertions either but 20 minutes and three swap requests later I've offloaded the manuals and now have almost everything I bid for and the bonus of a few extra days off.

OKC, Nice schedule! If you took 3 flights off your roster it would match a 380 FO's. I've a few FZ golf buddies in the top 20. How come they are always flying and n/a for golf?

[Saltaire]

Sure doesn't look like the FZ schedules I heard all about for many years. Appears to be less than 70 hours. I can't imagine FZ management continuing to allow this type of sched for a low cost company. Nice though.

[Old King Coal]

Saltaire: fwiw, FZ's no longer being marketed as 'low cost' per se, wherein for quite some time now (i.e. well over a year, and certainly since the introduction of seat-back IFE and 'Business Class') the airline has been endeavouring to morph itself into a something else (e.g. a 'good value' airline, or some such)?!

Wrt FZ pilot's flying hours, the AIMS system - as configured within FZ - typically plans to have us achieving 860'ish block hours on a rolling year (that statement being based upon my prior +5 years with FZ), which - with a 10.5 month flying year (what with holiday, sim, ground school, et al) - you can do the math.... and albeit that seasonal ebbs & flows (and having routes that exist in volatile parts of the world) can therein cause ebbs & flows in the monthly hours achieved by its pilots, but it all somewhat evens out... and rest assured that AIMS & Crewing ensure that ALL the flights do get covered!

I should perhaps add that, for the month of October, my currently rostered block hours total is 75 hours and, had I not been taking leave at the end of the month, then just one more long flight would put me just outside of FZ's planned hours for each calendar month, and also perilously close to going out of hours for the FTL annual 900 hour limit.

[CaptainChipotle]

I'm amazed by how many guys don't know they can call in sick-fatigued. EK has a responsibility to roster us properly to be rested for our flights. Our professional responsibility as aviators is to remove ourselves when we are not "fit" for duty.

How do you know if you are "fit" for duty? Very simple, it's 2 questions if you want to dumb it down. 1. Can you pass your medical exam when you report for your flight? 2. Are you adequately prepared to have an absolute catastrophe on board and rested enough to deal with it efficiently and safely... Because you will be judged if something DOES happen, and "I was really tired" isn't an excuse if you make a mistake. In the worst case scenario, if you don't survive and fatigue was found to be a contributing factor... Do you think the company will take the blame or YOU will be to blame for showing up to work tired?

Most people are scared to call in fatigued. It seems the company sees it can get away with pushing people harder and harder, until enough is enough.

With 92 hrs/month I can't forecast that I'll be fatigued, but I'll be paying attention to the symptoms and will happily call when/if the time comes. Me, for one, I'm more afraid of losing my health and sanity then losing a job with heavily decreasing benefits and pay.

One more thing. I had my AME tell me when I got my GCAA medical that they meet with the company every month to discuss the fatigue issue. If people just call sick and not sick fatigued (SKF) it can't be monitored. If a trend is picked up on, it will be noticed, however it may take a few months. It seems most guys complain about working too much/time zone changes/night flights, but only a MINORITY call in SKF.

Just my 2 cents, fly safe everyone

CC

[1013 with altsel]

Does anyone believe that the rosters have increased up to 93 hours a month because EK are short of crew. Or do you think this will be the standard roster as time goes on??

I'm contemplating accepting a position with Ek and trying to imagine how you guys feel, being jet lagged and tired all the time!

How does living in one of these rosters feel?

Thanks in advance for the info!

[SOPS]

The rosters have been 92 hours a month for several years now. That is the target, nothing to do with a shortage, it's what they expect you to fly, and it ain't going to go away.

If you want to know how it feels, run yourself over with a truck a few times!

And remember, in between the flying and recovering, you are meant to fit a life in as well!

[CamelRustler]

1013, I can speak for the 330/340 fleet. It is constant 8-10 days off and 85-92 hours. Equal number of flights on the back of the clock as the front. 5 years ago AS told us it would improve, it's gotten worse. Plus we go to several airports where they shoot at airplanes. I flew with two FO's last month who came from two different LCC's both are returning to these. If it was one or two months a year on bottom bid, you could cope, but you are never allowed to recover since its every month. At least 1/3 of your off days are single days, and do little for your rest. During your off days for 4 months of the year you will be studying for PPC's or handling sims. Handling sims require a half day to day of study, the PPC's have several modules you must complete online plus the 4 - 10 days of bookwork depending on the individual. If you are single its a lot easier to cope with this schedule. But my recent single LCC FO's preferred their old life, and went home. If you are entering onto the 330 I would not come, however if you are entering on the 777 and are not concerned about command and single, and out of work, I would consider it. All of the last part is IMHO.

[1013 with altsel]

Thank you very Much SOPS and Camel Rustler for you views and taking the time to give your opinion. It's greatly appreciated.

I get the impression EK rent your life an licence off you. For some , this may be a good move depending on what you have left behind . For others it may not work for them.

[Iver]

Critical point gleaned from these posts: don't burn any bridges at home or at your former airline!

[ilariomaybe]

Okc , then why you tried to crossover to Emirates as a DEC ? Obviously without a successful outcome ... :ooh:

Regards to Monrovia !

:ok:

[vfenext]

Camelrustler, do you seriously STUDY for a handling sim? For a whole day?

[harry the cod]

CamelRustler

Although I do not disagree that workload on the 330/340 fleet is high and same can be said for B777 guys too on 92 hours a month, I'm not sure about your study time calculations.

4-10 days of bookwork. Ok, will concede that as definitely down to the individual, but half to full day for the handling sim? Why? The instructor briefs you on the exercises, there's nothing to be tested on other than to turn up and fly the bloody plane. The biggest decision you'll ever make that day is which pair goes first.

The clue is in the title. Handling sim. :confused:

Harry

[Xulu]

I'm not sure many airlines roster you time to study for sims.... maybe unrealistic to complain about it. :ugh:

[CamelRustler]

HTC, The handling sim does have prep work on the Distance Learning and this time there was a 143 page document recommended as reading in Getting to Grips. Plus required OMA FCOM and FCTM review work. I feel 4 hours prep time adequate as there are points of discussion on the prebrief you are expected to know. However, I will concede, unlike most EK pilots, almost all the stuff I study gets washed away quickly and hence I do have to review more. (And no I did not read all 143 pages.) XULU - My point was the 8 days is gross, not net. Also, yes, in fact the last 3 airlines I worked for had required (paid) days for study of the required material prior to every PPC. Maybe a union thing or perhaps its cultural. But I do not think 2 additional days off prior to a PPC is unreasonable. Now I don't get paid time in the bunk or nice quiet layovers to study so perhaps I am a bit cynical. :E Either way we could all agree 8 days off a month, every month, is brutal.

[Aluminium shuffler]

Is it possible to print out your PPC questions and download modules so that you can study them in the cruise?

[sheiken around]

Harry,

Whilst no one is denying that the 777 guys do fly 92 hrs (and it's not easy!!) ... there is NO WAY that the flying can be compared to that of the 330/340.

The 330 guys do 12-15 takeoff/landings per month...compared to the 777's 5-6. This involves briefings and re-briefings...over and over again.day after day after day.

There is no augmenting at all on the 330 fleet...so the 85+ hours are all conducted whilst sitting in the flight deck....no CRC for the 330.

I could go on and on...All fleets fly hard here in EK, however, it is difficult to even attempt to compare the 330/340 fleet to any other at EK.

The 330/340 is the bastard stepchild.....

[ManaAdaSystem]

OMG! The 330 people take off and land? Several times every month? And brief as well?

I'm really shocked!

[kingpost]

ManaAdaSystem - yes they do, most of it at 0400 in the morning! Don't be a twonk with your remarks!

[harry the cod]

Tight Seat

I was aware that the simulator timings were changing but not for the handling sim. The plan is for our twice yearly regulatory check to go from 4 to 3 hours with no break. The handling sim will remain as is. I guess we'll all know soon enough when they make the actual changes.

sheiken

As for the differences in fleets, there's no denying the A330 guys get the short stick. 8-9 days off compared to 14-15 makes a huge lifestyle variance.

Camel

What works for you, stick with it. Everyone has different attitude to simulators and a lot depends on time in the Company and which seat you're in. Personally. I prefer to just turn up and fly. I get less stressed before hand and never have I been 'tested' on knowledge per say. It's what the handling sim has been designed for, simply to get hands on with the plane and fly it manually.

AS

We don't get PPC questions, only two online exams, one completed at home and the other at the end of the technical recurrent ground school day before the simulators.

Harry

[Aluminium shuffler]

Thanks Harry. We have an online exam for tech and another for SOPs with every LPC (PPC) at my current employer, but you can print off each question unanswered to research it at your convenience. It's a little wasteful on paper, so best to turn up early and print it in the crew room, but if yours won't allow a similar approach, then it is a bit of a pain. Personally, for the time it takes, I just do mine at home. An couple of hours is all it takes to do our tests with a bit of reference to manuals for a few questions. I hope your exams aren't made so obscure that you spend much more time than that searching for answers.

[1013 with altsel]

How long do you estimate a new joiner on the 330 fleet as an FO to move over to the 380 fleet?

I have seen rosters for both fleets and they are a world apart! Would it be worth accepting a 330 job and enduring a tough roster until a 380 comes along???

Cheers 1013

[Emma Royds]

I am sure one of my esteemed Airbus colleagues can give you a more accurate answer than I can but I would say that time to command may perhaps be a more pressing issue than the rosters, should you join the A330 now. It will be a long time before you get the pay rise.

For that reason, I advised a friend of mine who came for the selection to refuse the offer, if it was for the A330.

[BigGeordie]

At the moment you need 2,500 hours on type to get a command on the big bus. So you could do your 4 or 5 years on the 330 then more or less start again from the bottom on the 380. Unless that 2,500 hours requirement changes you could easily be looking at 8 or 9 years to command if you join on the 330 today. My advice- don't. The 380 is nice but it isn't that nice.

[Fearless Leader]

The 380 is nice but it isn't that nice.

Same way EK is