The usual suspect.
 

The crew and passengers of FlyDubai 981 left for a better place recently and may they rest in peace.
Yet already, the nasty yet familiar suspicion of fatigue is rearing its end.

At the time what already seems like a botched G/A happened, the crew had been up at task 5 or 6 hours and were operating in the middle of their WOCL.

Voices are raising already, citing the slavish-style rostering FlyDubai imposes on its pilots:

https://www.rt.com/news/336514-flydu...fatigue-crash/
F/O had worked 11 days prior to that flight, with only 1 day off.

No doubt when the final report comes out citing 'fatigue' as a factor to the accident, the airline will happily belch out the famous words:
"It was legal".

Where have I heard that before?
:hmm:

And we thought 'working to death' was a figure of speech.

11 days with only 1 day off ?

No, he'd worked 7 with 1 off.

Good to see that CX decided to scrap "Sim 5" whilst manual handling errors appear to be the main reason for prangs at the moment.

Awesome stuff MFT and former GMF!

Sound familiar to anyone?

Anyway don't worry, at least our brilliant caring company Cathay Pacific is nothing like a low cost carrier - they have our best interests at heart with their new Programme to monitor sickness...

Chesty, He had worked 11 with one day off in that period. Roster is in public view.

Yep and it seems I can read it better than you.

10/3 is the start of the run to which you refer. He checked in for the ROV on 18/3.

That's 8 days prior including one day off equating to 7 days work.

Now where have I heard that before? Oh, that's right, right here in CX. Now that they are committing resources to fixing the freighter rosters, we've been promised they will ATTEMPT to restrict freighter patterns to 10 days max on the PUBLISHED roster.

So keep on moving, nothing to see here folks. It's legal.

I stand corrected. If he had completed the trip he would have had a roster with 1 day off in 11 (10-20th with 15th off).

This is shocking reading, but somehow not surprising.

Nothing will change at FlyDubai, in their Arab arrogance they will ignore the whole thing.

But it really should be a wake up call for CX management, many Airbus rosters are not that different from what those FlyDubai guys are exposed to. Time to take responsibility and face reality before it's too late.

And yet none of you have left?

I am honestly starting to wonder who is worse......

What an excellent post.

It's time IFALPA puts it foot down. We're the front line of this madness, and we have the power and obligation to stop it.

We've lost control over our profession because we can't unite. We undercut each other, underbid each other, blame each other and fight one another while losing all focus on what should be our core business; getting our passengers safely from A to B.

As things now stand, any airline willing to go beyond the absolute minimum safety standard loses economic viability in the long run.

We must retake control of training standards. Of flight time limitations. On flight ops management qualifications. On admission to the profession.

The question just remains of how many more accidents have to occur before that will happen.

Spot on Quadspeed

PPSep15

Your post should be sent to every news organisation, every CEO and to the board.
Well said, 100% agree.

And yet none of you have left?

More than 15 since 1 Jan. BA roadshow will double that in one day.

Extremely well said PP, but don't forget to add Split Duty (they can be found illegally accepting min Split rest less than defined "rest", short changing themselves and Cabin Crew on time to get ready and meet downstairs)...
(....they can be found as regulatory authorities, bending to the desires of the big airlines, in allowing changes to legal protections, and allowing clearly fatiguing duties such as Split to continue.)

👏👏
Spot on
They can also be found writing to AT about it but doing nothing about her reply except making the standards even lower than they are now.
As for the BA roadshow they have to be accepted to start with , and that might be a big ask✌

Re coconut reply
 

No need to wonder.


They are much worse.




"Just leave". Great problem solving solution. Thanks for the tip....

Sounds like CX's policies... one can lose thousands of EUR/GBP/CAD/NZD/USD when calling in sick AND be punished under the new sickness management policy.

I'm a pilot of an airplane that can largely handle the mechanical chores of flying on its own. So most of my role in my job is in using good judgment and in making good decisions.

I can live without a few bucks, and I can live with a few nasty letters, admonishments, or even worse. If they arise out of doing the right thing they'll probably even give some interesting stories for the old pilots' home.

I can't live with wrecking my health, hurting my family, or taking chances with the lives of the 300 trusting souls in the back. So I won't do this, regardless of consequences.

Life is pretty easy when you do the right thing.

Well said Shep, and you're right... It is pretty easy.

"Do the right thing"... What a novel concept! If only the masters on the 9th floor would "do the right thing". Sadly, they are blinded by their greed and broken corporate culture which makes adversaries of their most valuable employees. How stupid is that???

Struggling with a broken marriage, Paul Whyte rented a plane from a Lismore flying club, made a final phone call to his daughters and disappeared into the ocean six nautical miles off Byron Bay.

Authorities refused to provide details of the tragedy, *infuriating Northern Rivers Aero Club president Bill Kiernan, the man who leased the aircraft to Mr Whyte.

Mr Kiernan said the Australian and International Pilots Association had tried to silence him, warning him not to tell anyone Mr Whyte was a Qantas pilot.

“I told them I’ll say whatever I want, because it was the truth,” he said.

Qantas initially refused to confirm Mr Whyte worked for them but yesterday conceded he was an employee.

NSW police believe the plane hit the ocean at “high speed”. A report is being prepared for the coroner.

Re: just leave
 

Rodscurtain, the suggestion to 'just leave' wasn't just my own. In fact, I remember thinking that it was more or less suggested that it be looked at as a realistic option in the 4th ed of the Aoa times in December of last year. I assume that was what was hinted at given that everyone received a half page of airline recruitment links anyway.

On the subject at hand, I have my own opinion surrounding pilots who elect to fly when they are knowingly unfit, whether it be fatigued or otherwise. I'm sure that most professional pilots, including yourself, would share the same opinion.

As for a show of solidarity when it comes to these issues - it is fairly obvious that as long as individuals continue to fly fatigued and continue to put up with all of this crap, very little will be done from the company's side to change anything.
Young SO's are joining this company in droves yet the number of pilots leaving does not appear to reflect that there is a large scale problem.
So I guess the question your friends in management are asking is, 'Is there even a problem?'

Things have never gotten better in Cathay in the last 10 years, only worse - I just wonder why anyone would continue to blindly hope and pray against all hopes that anything would change for the better now?

PP Sept
Interesting comment. I work for an airline that uses fatigue models, its the one that Scientists use and not available for commercial use. We use it in our airline,,when I say we- the sleepy scientists use it. We don't make judgments. A lot of the fatigue models lack one thing - data, particularly from "your" airline. They use averages. A best practice airline would have motion watches collecting data from it's crews so it can validate what the models are predicting. Does CX??

HahaHahahah. Now that made me laugh. The fact that you put Best Practice and CX in the same sentence made me wet myself.

Thanks for the laugh twiglet.

I believe that process is called "Normalization of Deviance".
Can't remember where I read about that...
:}

@ Shep69: Couldn't have said it any better