Tosh McCaber
12th Oct 2002, 15:33
The following article comes from one of the regular columnists who writes for the “Aberdeen Press & Journal” newspaper. Rather alarmist. Rather scary if true. Is anyone able to confirm or rubbish the article?
There is also a wry look at how two airlines have different reactions to customer complaints!
Quote:
There is a rather alarming story floating around in UK civil aviation of an aircraft at London Stansted belonging to a budget airline. It was involved in a near miss while it was still on the ground.
Pilots tell me that had an impact occurred it would have been no mere graze. The near miss happened at such a speed that an explosion and an all-consuming fireball would have been the result if the captain of the other aircraft hadn't taken evasive action.
The offending aircraft was hurrying down a shortcut to its stand, but the principal problem, according to my source, was that the captain was a Serb, the co pilot was Nigerian, and neither could understand the other's thickly accented English.
If they couldn't understand each other, how did they cope with that curiously distorted English from air-traffic control?
Given all this, would any passenger in his right mind consider entrusting himself to the care of such a pair on the flight deck, even if the ticket did cost just £9.99?
You would think good English would be a fairly basic requirement in British civil aviation, but it seems that some budget airlines trawl for pilots wherever they can get them and hang the possible consequences.
The pressures of working for a chop-chop budget airline, and the proliferation of flight crew whose first language is not English is already a matter of formal concern at the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA). You might argue that of course BALPA would want to protect its corner and you'd be right, but air safety is a matter for all of us, and overworked aircraft with overworked (and unintelligible) flight crew are not the brightest combination in transportation history.
Budget airlines have done a brilliant job in shattering the complacency of the big carriers, but most of the fares of flag carriers are now trimmed close enough to those of the upstarts to warrant paying the extra, flying with a national airline, enjoying the service and knowing that you wont have a delay caused by a thrashed aircraft's technical problem almost every time you fly.
It was instructive, by the way, to note airlines' reactions to the tally of customer complaints issued this week by the Air Transport Users Council (AUC).
British Airways, which attracted a complaint for every 342,000 passengers carried (a total of 117 complaints), apologised, said it was 117 complaints too many, and assured the AUC that it would be doing its best to see that the figure was reduced by next year.
Ryanair, which is said to fling complaint letters in the bucket, attracted a complaint for every 143,000 passengers carried (a total of 77 complaints) and said: "So? It was only 77”
There is also a wry look at how two airlines have different reactions to customer complaints!
Quote:
There is a rather alarming story floating around in UK civil aviation of an aircraft at London Stansted belonging to a budget airline. It was involved in a near miss while it was still on the ground.
Pilots tell me that had an impact occurred it would have been no mere graze. The near miss happened at such a speed that an explosion and an all-consuming fireball would have been the result if the captain of the other aircraft hadn't taken evasive action.
The offending aircraft was hurrying down a shortcut to its stand, but the principal problem, according to my source, was that the captain was a Serb, the co pilot was Nigerian, and neither could understand the other's thickly accented English.
If they couldn't understand each other, how did they cope with that curiously distorted English from air-traffic control?
Given all this, would any passenger in his right mind consider entrusting himself to the care of such a pair on the flight deck, even if the ticket did cost just £9.99?
You would think good English would be a fairly basic requirement in British civil aviation, but it seems that some budget airlines trawl for pilots wherever they can get them and hang the possible consequences.
The pressures of working for a chop-chop budget airline, and the proliferation of flight crew whose first language is not English is already a matter of formal concern at the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA). You might argue that of course BALPA would want to protect its corner and you'd be right, but air safety is a matter for all of us, and overworked aircraft with overworked (and unintelligible) flight crew are not the brightest combination in transportation history.
Budget airlines have done a brilliant job in shattering the complacency of the big carriers, but most of the fares of flag carriers are now trimmed close enough to those of the upstarts to warrant paying the extra, flying with a national airline, enjoying the service and knowing that you wont have a delay caused by a thrashed aircraft's technical problem almost every time you fly.
It was instructive, by the way, to note airlines' reactions to the tally of customer complaints issued this week by the Air Transport Users Council (AUC).
British Airways, which attracted a complaint for every 342,000 passengers carried (a total of 117 complaints), apologised, said it was 117 complaints too many, and assured the AUC that it would be doing its best to see that the figure was reduced by next year.
Ryanair, which is said to fling complaint letters in the bucket, attracted a complaint for every 143,000 passengers carried (a total of 77 complaints) and said: "So? It was only 77”