Is that a "Elephant" in the room (Merged)
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: NSW,Australia
Posts: 395
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Is that a "Elephant" in the room (Merged)
From Crikey.com.au
Top Stories
1. Fear of flying takes on new meaning in Australian skies
Ben Sandilands writes:
Airline passengers who want absolute certainty that their pilots are as fresh as possible 'at the wheel' may have serious cause for a heightened fear of flying amid a push to force pilots to accept conditions that could compromise Australian air safety.
Intimidation, secret deals, and bitter feuds among former colleagues: they are parts of the alarming unhappiness that has come to cockpits all over Australia.
And there are claims that substantial numbers of Australian pilots have accepted -- or been forced to accept -- 'fatigue management solutions' that would be criminal if applied to the long-distance truckies on the nation's highways.
Where will it all end? With more money, more acrimony, or an air disaster leading to a Royal Commission?
What the public is of late seeing solely as the serious inconvenience of cancelled flights -- and not only on Virgin Blue -- is in fact a fierce struggle for the joystick when it comes to flight-duty conditions between the Australian airlines and pilots who are themselves deeply divided over the underlying issues.
It has been described to Crikey as the one workplace reform that can literally come crashing back to earth. And our informants can't be identified in an industry where they will never again fly in this country if they speak out about the determined efforts underway to destroy the long-standing Civil Aviation Order 48, which caps the time spent actually flying an airliner to 900 hours a year.
CAO 48, which the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is supposed to uphold, has been comprehensively subverted by a string of commercial-in-confidence deals over what are termed pilot-fatigue management programs written into airline operating manuals, which require CASA's approval, including subsequent variations.
There are claims that the rostering detail accepted by or foisted on substantial numbers of Australian pilots would be criminal infringements of the laws relating to long-distance truck drivers. But no-one, including the regulator, the responsible minister, and his Opposition counterparts, has yet shared any of his or her concerns about this with the public who sits on the other side of the cockpit doors, in the delusion that world's best-practice in piloting standards and work conditions are humming along in harmony with the professional pilots at the controls.
In fact, not even the least-tamed pilots' association, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, has yet taken a public stand on the duty-hours crisis that one way or another embroils members flying for Virgin Blue, some Qantas group carriers, including Jetstar and other scheduled operators, right down to the size of Transair, which like those who were aboard the ill-fated flight into the Lockhart River strip in 2005, will never fly again.
Why? Perhaps because it is weeks away from any likely conclusion to EBA negotiations with Virgin Blue, but also because Crikey has learned that some members are double-crossing each other for perceived career advantages.
What do 'fatigue management solutions' entail. They include quite proper checks by management that pilots are indeed fatigued. But they also involve processes of reporting 'fatigue' to operations managers in what some claim is such an intimidating environment that a career-oriented young first officer might recognise as being career-threatening.
One recently retired check captain who oversaw flight standards on a large scale, says: "You were wrong to recently report too many pilots were taking sickies. Too few pilots are declaring themselves fatigued in situations where they should emphatically not be permitted to control an airliner, especially if overtaken by those unexpected things, like mechanical failures, or severe weather, or an emergency landing, where the wrong decision is irretrievably wrong."
Why? "Because of greed or opportunity or fear. There is a serious decline in the culture of operational safety right around the world. I'm especially disappointed to see that Australia is going down the path of expediency in keeping enough hands on the sticks, rather than daring to lead in renewing a professional pilot pool."
This informant says he believes CASA has secretly, that is commercially-in-confidence, allowed the variation of some of the existing fatigue management programs to assist the airline through its current difficulties, which have been exacerbated by the tax-free recruiting drives of Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and other carriers for the skilled airline professionals they need to sustain massive expansion.
Crikey has asked specific questions of CASA and its embattled CEO, Bruce Byron, but no response was received by late this morning.
The most acute question of all is whether Byron is there to 'assist carriers through their difficulties' or come clean with the public about the pressures that are becoming apparent to anyone who has had their flight cancelled in recent times.
Send your tips to [email protected] or submit them anonymously here .
Back to Top
Top Stories
1. Fear of flying takes on new meaning in Australian skies
Ben Sandilands writes:
Airline passengers who want absolute certainty that their pilots are as fresh as possible 'at the wheel' may have serious cause for a heightened fear of flying amid a push to force pilots to accept conditions that could compromise Australian air safety.
Intimidation, secret deals, and bitter feuds among former colleagues: they are parts of the alarming unhappiness that has come to cockpits all over Australia.
And there are claims that substantial numbers of Australian pilots have accepted -- or been forced to accept -- 'fatigue management solutions' that would be criminal if applied to the long-distance truckies on the nation's highways.
Where will it all end? With more money, more acrimony, or an air disaster leading to a Royal Commission?
What the public is of late seeing solely as the serious inconvenience of cancelled flights -- and not only on Virgin Blue -- is in fact a fierce struggle for the joystick when it comes to flight-duty conditions between the Australian airlines and pilots who are themselves deeply divided over the underlying issues.
It has been described to Crikey as the one workplace reform that can literally come crashing back to earth. And our informants can't be identified in an industry where they will never again fly in this country if they speak out about the determined efforts underway to destroy the long-standing Civil Aviation Order 48, which caps the time spent actually flying an airliner to 900 hours a year.
CAO 48, which the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is supposed to uphold, has been comprehensively subverted by a string of commercial-in-confidence deals over what are termed pilot-fatigue management programs written into airline operating manuals, which require CASA's approval, including subsequent variations.
There are claims that the rostering detail accepted by or foisted on substantial numbers of Australian pilots would be criminal infringements of the laws relating to long-distance truck drivers. But no-one, including the regulator, the responsible minister, and his Opposition counterparts, has yet shared any of his or her concerns about this with the public who sits on the other side of the cockpit doors, in the delusion that world's best-practice in piloting standards and work conditions are humming along in harmony with the professional pilots at the controls.
In fact, not even the least-tamed pilots' association, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, has yet taken a public stand on the duty-hours crisis that one way or another embroils members flying for Virgin Blue, some Qantas group carriers, including Jetstar and other scheduled operators, right down to the size of Transair, which like those who were aboard the ill-fated flight into the Lockhart River strip in 2005, will never fly again.
Why? Perhaps because it is weeks away from any likely conclusion to EBA negotiations with Virgin Blue, but also because Crikey has learned that some members are double-crossing each other for perceived career advantages.
What do 'fatigue management solutions' entail. They include quite proper checks by management that pilots are indeed fatigued. But they also involve processes of reporting 'fatigue' to operations managers in what some claim is such an intimidating environment that a career-oriented young first officer might recognise as being career-threatening.
One recently retired check captain who oversaw flight standards on a large scale, says: "You were wrong to recently report too many pilots were taking sickies. Too few pilots are declaring themselves fatigued in situations where they should emphatically not be permitted to control an airliner, especially if overtaken by those unexpected things, like mechanical failures, or severe weather, or an emergency landing, where the wrong decision is irretrievably wrong."
Why? "Because of greed or opportunity or fear. There is a serious decline in the culture of operational safety right around the world. I'm especially disappointed to see that Australia is going down the path of expediency in keeping enough hands on the sticks, rather than daring to lead in renewing a professional pilot pool."
This informant says he believes CASA has secretly, that is commercially-in-confidence, allowed the variation of some of the existing fatigue management programs to assist the airline through its current difficulties, which have been exacerbated by the tax-free recruiting drives of Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and other carriers for the skilled airline professionals they need to sustain massive expansion.
Crikey has asked specific questions of CASA and its embattled CEO, Bruce Byron, but no response was received by late this morning.
The most acute question of all is whether Byron is there to 'assist carriers through their difficulties' or come clean with the public about the pressures that are becoming apparent to anyone who has had their flight cancelled in recent times.
Send your tips to [email protected] or submit them anonymously here .
Back to Top
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 10
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Crikey has asked specific questions of CASA and its embattled CEO, Bruce Byron, but no response was received by late this morning.
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 705
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
You would think that after the wash up after "Lockhart River" that Byron would be losing sleep, One wonders if that would still be the case if there was a similar conclusion on a larger scale?
I am not saying 48 is the be all and end all but like most safety related legislation it is written in blood.
I am not saying 48 is the be all and end all but like most safety related legislation it is written in blood.
Guest
Posts: n/a
Faiding away.
Some years ago I spoke with the owner of a small NSW based operator regarding this issue. He used a Fatigue Analysis Inter-Dyne To gauge the amount of fatuge that his pilots endure before he would give them time off.
His program had been developed by the University of South Australia and was approved by CASA as a fatigue monitoring program. The logic of its operation went along these lines:
1) Flying operations are tiring. The time spent fly gives a Fatigue Index for the computer program (Inter Dyne) of , say, 3.7.
2) Being at home involves rest as well as domestic chores; cooking, cleaning and the like. These attract a fatigue index of, say 1.2.
3) Cleaning and similar jobs done at home or at work generate the same Fatigue Index. When you achieve a specified fatigue score, you get time off.
4) From 3), It doesn't matter wheather you are at home or at work to generate the same level of fatigue, so you might as well generate this fatigue at work as you are only going to do this sort of stuff in your own unproductive time and get equally fatigued.
5) Thus, a CAO 48 exemption was granted and this company's pilots worked 10-12 hour days, 6 days per week. 60 hrs per week duty was the norm, he bragged to me. What Suckers he had working for him, they made ~$9 per hour and were his cheapest employees. His aircraft were very clean, though.
6) CASA regards this man to be a "showcase" operator.
7) His staff regarded him as an utter #$%^t!
His program had been developed by the University of South Australia and was approved by CASA as a fatigue monitoring program. The logic of its operation went along these lines:
1) Flying operations are tiring. The time spent fly gives a Fatigue Index for the computer program (Inter Dyne) of , say, 3.7.
2) Being at home involves rest as well as domestic chores; cooking, cleaning and the like. These attract a fatigue index of, say 1.2.
3) Cleaning and similar jobs done at home or at work generate the same Fatigue Index. When you achieve a specified fatigue score, you get time off.
4) From 3), It doesn't matter wheather you are at home or at work to generate the same level of fatigue, so you might as well generate this fatigue at work as you are only going to do this sort of stuff in your own unproductive time and get equally fatigued.
5) Thus, a CAO 48 exemption was granted and this company's pilots worked 10-12 hour days, 6 days per week. 60 hrs per week duty was the norm, he bragged to me. What Suckers he had working for him, they made ~$9 per hour and were his cheapest employees. His aircraft were very clean, though.
6) CASA regards this man to be a "showcase" operator.
7) His staff regarded him as an utter #$%^t!
Last edited by Ralph the Bong; 4th May 2007 at 07:10. Reason: felt like it
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Perth
Age: 54
Posts: 247
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
FAID also has some other problems. It's sposed to track your circadian rythms and give scores according to those critical hours of 12:00 - 05:00. You should check out if it takes into account any changes in time zones, coz the one I used to have to use didn't care too much if you were 0600 local but you've just come from home base and it was 0400. You get pretty tired but hey the numbers were good.
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Sydney
Posts: 137
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I just gotta ask.......
Can anyone actually recall anytime during our Australian aviation history where someone hasn't run the old safety flag up the flagpole during their industrial relations negotiations.
Just wondering if has actually happened.........
Can anyone actually recall anytime during our Australian aviation history where someone hasn't run the old safety flag up the flagpole during their industrial relations negotiations.
Just wondering if has actually happened.........
Metrosexual
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Enroute
Posts: 622
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
0430 some where in this great sunburnt country.....
THE DREAM
Pilot: 'Hello ops, I am shagged, didn't manage to get a wink last night, for some reason'
Ops: "No problem - we wouldn't want you to fly fatigued!! God forbid!! After all we have LOTS of pilot on standby for this very reason. Get back to bed you silly sausage, get some sleep, and call me later when you're rested up. We might find you a a couple of light afternoon sectors for you to do, if you feel up to it by then"
THE REALITY
Pilot: 'Hello Ops, I signed on this morning at 0500 and today I flew 5 non-precision approaches to the minima, had an engine failure at V1, flew through and around frontal storms for 4 of the 8 sectors, missed lunch cause our turnarounds were so tight, and I just signed off at 1900 cause we had a tech delay and holding into YSSY cause they were on Rwy 27 all day. Honestly assessing myself, I am too fatigued to accept my duty commencing at 0500 tomorrow"
Ops: "Hang on - I'll run it through FAID..."
(on hold for a minute or so........)
Ops: 'FAID says you're OK to fly - see ya'.
CLUNK! That's the sound of the phone being hung up in the pilot's ear
THE DREAM
Pilot: 'Hello ops, I am shagged, didn't manage to get a wink last night, for some reason'
Ops: "No problem - we wouldn't want you to fly fatigued!! God forbid!! After all we have LOTS of pilot on standby for this very reason. Get back to bed you silly sausage, get some sleep, and call me later when you're rested up. We might find you a a couple of light afternoon sectors for you to do, if you feel up to it by then"
THE REALITY
Pilot: 'Hello Ops, I signed on this morning at 0500 and today I flew 5 non-precision approaches to the minima, had an engine failure at V1, flew through and around frontal storms for 4 of the 8 sectors, missed lunch cause our turnarounds were so tight, and I just signed off at 1900 cause we had a tech delay and holding into YSSY cause they were on Rwy 27 all day. Honestly assessing myself, I am too fatigued to accept my duty commencing at 0500 tomorrow"
Ops: "Hang on - I'll run it through FAID..."
(on hold for a minute or so........)
Ops: 'FAID says you're OK to fly - see ya'.
CLUNK! That's the sound of the phone being hung up in the pilot's ear
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Out of the furnace...
Posts: 85
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Can anyone actually recall anytime during our Australian aviation history where someone hasn't run the old safety flag up the flagpole during their industrial relations negotiations.
Guest
Posts: n/a
The Manager's Perspective seems a little bit cynical.
I just re-read the Ben Sandilands article and the thrust of his peice in 'Crikey' is that the fatigue issue had not been raised sufficently as a safety issue by Pilot industrial representatives.
In a perfect world, staff and management would be in agreement on this one. As far a Pilot's arew concerned, mate, the fatigue issue is very real. It is not something that is dredged up as a barganing point.
Let's not get between a Manager and his/her bonus; just drive the system harder, faster and with smaller tolerences until.... ....
...
I just re-read the Ben Sandilands article and the thrust of his peice in 'Crikey' is that the fatigue issue had not been raised sufficently as a safety issue by Pilot industrial representatives.
In a perfect world, staff and management would be in agreement on this one. As far a Pilot's arew concerned, mate, the fatigue issue is very real. It is not something that is dredged up as a barganing point.
Let's not get between a Manager and his/her bonus; just drive the system harder, faster and with smaller tolerences until....
.... ...
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: SE Asia
Posts: 10
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Australian Pilots Fatigued?
Fear of flying takes on new meaning in Australian skies
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20...andilands.html
Airline passengers who want absolute certainty that their pilots are as fresh as possible 'at the wheel' may have serious cause for a heightened fear of flying amid a push to force pilots to accept conditions that could compromise Australian air safety.
Intimidation, secret deals, and bitter feuds among former colleagues: they are parts of the alarming unhappiness that has come to cockpits all over Australia.
And there are claims that substantial numbers of Australian pilots have accepted -- or been forced to accept -- 'fatigue management solutions' that would be criminal if applied to the long-distance truckies on the nation's highways.
Where will it all end? With more money, more acrimony, or an air disaster leading to a Royal Commission?
What the public is of late seeing solely as the serious inconvenience of cancelled flights -- and not only on Virgin Blue -- is in fact a fierce struggle for the joystick when it comes to flight-duty conditions between the Australian airlines and pilots who are themselves deeply divided over the underlying issues.
It has been described to Crikey as the one workplace reform that can literally come crashing back to earth. And our informants can't be identified in an industry where they will never again fly in this country if they speak out about the determined efforts underway to destroy the long-standing Civil Aviation Order 48, which caps the time spent actually flying an airliner to 900 hours a year.
CAO 48, which the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is supposed to uphold, has been comprehensively subverted by a string of commercial-in-confidence deals over what are termed pilot-fatigue management programs written into airline operating manuals, which require CASA's approval, including subsequent variations.
There are claims that the rostering detail accepted by or foisted on substantial numbers of Australian pilots would be criminal infringements of the laws relating to long-distance truck drivers. But no-one, including the regulator, the responsible minister, and his Opposition counterparts, has yet shared any of his or her concerns about this with the public who sits on the other side of the cockpit doors, in the delusion that world's best-practice in piloting standards and work conditions are humming along in harmony with the professional pilots at the controls.
In fact, not even the least-tamed pilots' association, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, has yet taken a public stand on the duty-hours crisis that one way or another embroils members flying for Virgin Blue, some Qantas group carriers, including Jetstar and other scheduled operators, right down to the size of Transair, which like those who were aboard the ill-fated flight into the Lockhart River strip in 2005, will never fly again.
Why? Perhaps because it is weeks away from any likely conclusion to EBA negotiations with Virgin Blue, but also because Crikey has learned that some members are double-crossing each other for perceived career advantages.
What do 'fatigue management solutions' entail. They include quite proper checks by management that pilots are indeed fatigued. But they also involve processes of reporting 'fatigue' to operations managers in what some claim is such an intimidating environment that a career-oriented young first officer might recognise as being career-threatening.
One recently retired check captain who oversaw flight standards on a large scale, says: "You were wrong to recently report too many pilots were taking sickies. Too few pilots are declaring themselves fatigued in situations
where they should emphatically not be permitted to control an airliner, especially if overtaken by those unexpected things, like mechanical failures, or severe weather, or an emergency landing, where the wrong
decision is irretrievably wrong."
Why? "Because of greed or opportunity or fear. There is a serious decline inthe culture of operational safety right around the world. I'm especially disappointed to see that Australia is going down the path of expediency in keeping enough hands on the sticks, rather than daring to lead in renewing a professional pilot pool."
This informant says he believes CASA has secretly, that iscommercially-in-confidence, allowed the variation of some of the existing fatigue management programs to assist the airline through its current difficulties, which have been exacerbated by the tax-free recruiting drives
of Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and other carriers for the skilled airline professionals they need to sustain massive expansion.
Crikey has asked specific questions of CASA and its embattled CEO, Bruce Byron, but no response was received by late this morning.
The most acute question of all is whether Byron is there to 'assist carriers through their difficulties' or come clean with the public about the pressures that are becoming apparent to anyone who has had their flight cancelled in recent times.
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20...andilands.html
Airline passengers who want absolute certainty that their pilots are as fresh as possible 'at the wheel' may have serious cause for a heightened fear of flying amid a push to force pilots to accept conditions that could compromise Australian air safety.
Intimidation, secret deals, and bitter feuds among former colleagues: they are parts of the alarming unhappiness that has come to cockpits all over Australia.
And there are claims that substantial numbers of Australian pilots have accepted -- or been forced to accept -- 'fatigue management solutions' that would be criminal if applied to the long-distance truckies on the nation's highways.
Where will it all end? With more money, more acrimony, or an air disaster leading to a Royal Commission?
What the public is of late seeing solely as the serious inconvenience of cancelled flights -- and not only on Virgin Blue -- is in fact a fierce struggle for the joystick when it comes to flight-duty conditions between the Australian airlines and pilots who are themselves deeply divided over the underlying issues.
It has been described to Crikey as the one workplace reform that can literally come crashing back to earth. And our informants can't be identified in an industry where they will never again fly in this country if they speak out about the determined efforts underway to destroy the long-standing Civil Aviation Order 48, which caps the time spent actually flying an airliner to 900 hours a year.
CAO 48, which the Civil Aviation Safety Authority is supposed to uphold, has been comprehensively subverted by a string of commercial-in-confidence deals over what are termed pilot-fatigue management programs written into airline operating manuals, which require CASA's approval, including subsequent variations.
There are claims that the rostering detail accepted by or foisted on substantial numbers of Australian pilots would be criminal infringements of the laws relating to long-distance truck drivers. But no-one, including the regulator, the responsible minister, and his Opposition counterparts, has yet shared any of his or her concerns about this with the public who sits on the other side of the cockpit doors, in the delusion that world's best-practice in piloting standards and work conditions are humming along in harmony with the professional pilots at the controls.
In fact, not even the least-tamed pilots' association, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, has yet taken a public stand on the duty-hours crisis that one way or another embroils members flying for Virgin Blue, some Qantas group carriers, including Jetstar and other scheduled operators, right down to the size of Transair, which like those who were aboard the ill-fated flight into the Lockhart River strip in 2005, will never fly again.
Why? Perhaps because it is weeks away from any likely conclusion to EBA negotiations with Virgin Blue, but also because Crikey has learned that some members are double-crossing each other for perceived career advantages.
What do 'fatigue management solutions' entail. They include quite proper checks by management that pilots are indeed fatigued. But they also involve processes of reporting 'fatigue' to operations managers in what some claim is such an intimidating environment that a career-oriented young first officer might recognise as being career-threatening.
One recently retired check captain who oversaw flight standards on a large scale, says: "You were wrong to recently report too many pilots were taking sickies. Too few pilots are declaring themselves fatigued in situations
where they should emphatically not be permitted to control an airliner, especially if overtaken by those unexpected things, like mechanical failures, or severe weather, or an emergency landing, where the wrong
decision is irretrievably wrong."
Why? "Because of greed or opportunity or fear. There is a serious decline inthe culture of operational safety right around the world. I'm especially disappointed to see that Australia is going down the path of expediency in keeping enough hands on the sticks, rather than daring to lead in renewing a professional pilot pool."
This informant says he believes CASA has secretly, that iscommercially-in-confidence, allowed the variation of some of the existing fatigue management programs to assist the airline through its current difficulties, which have been exacerbated by the tax-free recruiting drives
of Emirates, Etihad, Qatar and other carriers for the skilled airline professionals they need to sustain massive expansion.
Crikey has asked specific questions of CASA and its embattled CEO, Bruce Byron, but no response was received by late this morning.
The most acute question of all is whether Byron is there to 'assist carriers through their difficulties' or come clean with the public about the pressures that are becoming apparent to anyone who has had their flight cancelled in recent times.
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 279
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I notice that you guys are using FAID fatigue monitoring system. Can anyone tell me if it is the same program being used by Airservices for ATC's?
Our FAID scores make us not available over 80 (unless certain criteria are met, blah, blah). Is this anywhere near what pilots are limited to? We have no legislated max. working hours and many controllers work 10 on 1 off these days due to unfilled shifts. Particularly curious to know your max FAID scores.
Cheers,
Roger Standby
Our FAID scores make us not available over 80 (unless certain criteria are met, blah, blah). Is this anywhere near what pilots are limited to? We have no legislated max. working hours and many controllers work 10 on 1 off these days due to unfilled shifts. Particularly curious to know your max FAID scores.
Cheers,
Roger Standby
Metrosexual
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Enroute
Posts: 622
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
75 last place i worked under it.
FAID doesn't differentiate intensity of labour eg doesn't differentiate between an 8 hr duty day of 2 x 1hr sector CAVOK flying, or 8 hr duty with multiple sectors flown in TS, approaches to the minima etc.
It does include the drive to and from work though.
FAID doesn't differentiate intensity of labour eg doesn't differentiate between an 8 hr duty day of 2 x 1hr sector CAVOK flying, or 8 hr duty with multiple sectors flown in TS, approaches to the minima etc.
It does include the drive to and from work though.
