How big do you think the exodus from EK will be....
 

Latest rumour:

777 CMD courses for the rest of the year cancelled for FOs who had already passed their interviews.

The reason?

Short FOs and so DECs are about to be recruited onto the fleet.

I reckon 2 FOs for every 1 DEC they get.

Keep discovering.

Remain calm...

That was Thursday's plan.

When they realise that there are no DEC's interested, the plan will change again.

Probably start recruiting DEC's from Turboprop background...:O

Allegedly, and this a rumour network after all, DSVP FO is at a loss as to why so many are leaving!

This, if true, stuns me as he is a bright and grounded bloke IMHO. Maybe we are really all imagining how far our QoL has gone down the plumbing.

I'm not really totally pooped all the time it's really a feeling of euphoria from being so well loved and treated by my bosses.

Time for another "happy pill" .........................................

For those of an age, I have an Air Europe feeling about the current situation.

For those of younger years, it is not a good feeling or outcome.................:eek:

Habibis, they will not get many DEC's for the 777, look at the recruitment disaster of the A330 DECs. Not one made it thru selection, of the few that applied. There maybe a few more, as the 777 fleet is viewed as marginally more appealing, given less night flights to the Sub continent for now.

I have been here a fair while, and of course as a pilot I am entitled to bitch and moan and praise when right (the latter being rare these days). The recipe has all of a sudden changed, colleagues are not just talking about leaving, they are actually leaving in droves. I myself have never been to a roadshow for other airlines, here in DXB or elsewhere. i am going to both the Korean and Jet2. I am now looking actively for opportunities, not what I thought I would be doing.

EK Address these issues and you will have no issues crewing the aircraft.

1.Let the rostering system do its job, let us bid for what we want, leave the current or new system alone. Keep the rotating bid system as is. Stop putting in ludicrous restrictions, and making bidding difficult.

2. Reduce the workload, 95+hrs a month is unsustainable for most of us. Back of the curve night duties, are not good for our longevity.

3. Honour our contract and give us our leave, 4 or 5 day blocks do not count.

4.Pay increase- Doesn't have to be huge, but the annual increment does not count.

5. Let us have a guaranteed block of days off a month. 7 days would work!

Add your wishes below folks.

Many are leaving as the workload is unsustainable. We are constantly tired, and that affects our health and personal lives. Those that are leaving are mainly leaving because of quality of life issues. Thats why I am looking at other jobs.

SyB :zzz::zzz:

Alwayzinit, it's funny that you bring up Air Europe. I have read a couple of books about that compsny and its history, and you are right, it does have an Air Europe feel to it.

Oh dear
 

Was in ground school this year and guess what, every Pilot I spoke to was on a short term plan, tired of fatigue angry wife's. No quality of life...long haul operator that puts night turns in between trips...sustainable?

Just curious but Boeing and EK have a working relationship. Boeing not unlike other pilot contract companies, supplies pilots for various assignments. What's to stop Boeing from supplying EK with short term contract pilots?

Alwayzinit,... I too remember the demise of AE only too well (on 8th March 1991), wherein I lived it, first hand... and, fwiw, I'm still in regular contact with GJB, and hoping to drop by and see him in the next week or so. ;)

Disconnect
 

Alwayzinit, the current disconnect of EK management from their employees and reality is very unfortunate but was easy to predict. Here is a sequence of events:

- Install authoritative regime without the burdens of check and balance

- Achieve quick victories that would have been impossible in a slow, balanced environment

- Become drunken on your own success and start to believe in your own superiority

- Crush any critical voices that spoil the party. Enjoy your absolute power. In airman language: turn off the warning systems because they create unpleasant noise

- Use any crisis to cement your power by eradicating scapegoats. A welcome way to get rid of the last independent thinkers. By now information is definitely only flowing top-down.

- Reality has become distorted because it doesn't reach you any more. The layers below tweak any hard truths - or they wouldn't be there any more. You are now cruising based on pure luck. You are eating into your gains from the past, in this case the excellent pilot corps you had attracted earlier.

- Because you have become unable to face and fix small unpleasant truths in the past you are ill prepared to accept and deal with any real big problem. But that is what's heading your way. Self-induced and/or from external factors.

In short, it is a recipe for disaster followed by the Romans, the Germans in their 1000 year empire (12 years in the history books) and by various Communist regimes. It is ranked as a leading cause for corporate bankruptcy.

Chances are that this is not going to end well. I am sure that they will squeeze the remaining crew even harder before the inevitable end game. By now a change of direction would be a major effort for a competent management team. But you know who leads you and that personal pride will prohibit any loss of face.

I left when I had the opportunity but I have not forgotten your suffering. Good luck for what is about to come.

Great post, in freedom. And great nick, as well.

I have to defend Yugoslavian communism, though. :}

http://i61.tinypic.com/2i6nreo.jpg

History will repeat itself yet again. ALL GREAT EMPIRES EVENTUALLY FALL!!

Jack

I don't think Emirates or Dubai was ever a great Empire. Far from it.
If tomorrow is going to be worse than today and the day after tomorrow worse than tomorrow why does anyone stay at Emirates? We are somewhat intelligent people and most of us can see what is happening here; we as Emirates employees have to pay for Dubai excess'. This creates an environment where everything is taken away and nothing given. The Emperors have gotton so drunk on power that they don't even give us the items that don't cost anything.
This is so sad. It is to the point even if they give us an industry leading contract very few pilots will come. It is the attitude and treatment that are so bad (in addition to the pay) at Emirates.
Rumor is every fleet is short of pilots in September and Ad-Opt can't complete its task. I wonder how late the rosters will be?
There are lots of great airline jobs out there nowadays. Get out before tomorrow.

Lets be honest though; threads like this start on a weekly basis and so far there has been no significant rumour of flight cancellations due to Pilots shortage. As previous threads seem to indicate the attrition rate at EK is around 3%, this is entirely normal and anything less than around 10% will not change anything. The guys who are truly not happy need to leave in order to make things better for everybody else.


I can't see much success with any kind of type rated DEC programme because anybody with a 777 on his/her license is already in a company where they will have a contract similar or better than EK and seniority.

What a stupid comment Polax. For you to be happy the unhappy pilots have to leave? You are an idiot aren't you?
If everyone that was unhappy left EK the airline would be grounded. Beside Harry who else do you know that is really happy? The SAs don't count. Or a more important question is with all that has happened who is still happy at EK.
What will be the final straw that breaks the rest of the pilots backs? We all know it is going to get worse so what will it be? VAT, 120 flt hrs, no leave.

Polax…

Agree with LHR on your comments….

How on earth would anyone leaving EK help the problems. That is not the culture we live in here.

So you're saying if more guys leave, it'll be better for you? You're saying Fewer pilots would mean LESS flying hours per month, FEWER crazy rotations of day night/night day ops followed preceded by a 10 hour time zone ULR… and you say that would make things better for you if lots of pilots left??? You think you'd get your 42 days vacation if more pilots left??? You think the 94 hours plus each month would be LESS if lots of pilots left? I honestly don't follow your logic.

It's akin to you simply sticking your head in the proverbial sand hoping the the problems disappear….

I simply fail to see the logic in your statement. But in good EK CRM tradition, I'm willing to listen to an explanation.

Specifically though… I'd like to ask you to answer this: Why are fewer and few pilots getting only 30 days vacation at 4 and 5 day clips vs the "entitled" 42 each year? Also, don't know about your roster, but mine is WELL over 92 hours anymore these days. Why would that be if as you imply, there is no pilot shortage? And the 3% you mention….. You do realize that anyone who leaves over age 50 is NOT counted in that 3%, right? They are considered to have RETIRED and so therefore HR can come to wash-up and tell us everything is normal. Laughable….

Kap

They make it difficult to like them
 

They make it difficult to like them!!

A purser said this to me one day and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The situation today within the company is so diametrically opposed to when I

joined.

I can hardly believe how this has come about. It saddens and puzzles me at

the same time.

From flying with colleagues who praised their tenure within the company, to

currently flying with colleagues who despise and profess their hatred for it.

I literally do not know anyone who is not actively looking for other options or

who would go out of their way to help the company.

If this is the company style that management want, it is going to be a rude

awakening when their lack of respect for human desires and needs leads to

the inevitable crisis.

I can only hope that I have moved on before then. :ugh:

As much as I agree with the previous poster...
 

50% of the pilot body did exactly that! For no other reason than to help the company, half of the pilots actually put a parallel bid in!!!

We are our own worst enemies!

That was just naive curiosity. Chat to your colleagues - most mistakenly thought they would somehow see the results and could compare.

In the past there has been talk of an exodus but this time people are acting on their desire to leave. Unless there is a radical change of attitude from AS replacement the company will end up in a terminal decline.
I feel that flight safety is now being compromised the recipe for disaster is there.....overworked, tired de motivated pilots in my near 13 years here I have never known it like this.
I am not going to work under these conditions 95 hours plus every month does not interest me and for long term health it's a non starter.

Some numbers I heard from a reliable source in the last few days.
36 skippers resigned in the last month and about 400 f/o's short on the 777.:eek:
Any substance to these numbers....can anyone verify it?

That's it in a nutshell for me now, we can talk until we are blue in the face about a variety of things relating to pay and QOL but quite frankly I know have a real fear that we will be watching one of those 24hr news channels with bad "breaking news".
I sincerely hope against hope that this is not the case but honestly? Do you think that Commercial or Flt Ops are even aware of the pressure we are under?
I remember after the MEL incident all the arse covering that went on and the strenuous denials in the various branches of the media when the verboten word "fatigue" was mentioned. Shoot the messenger, ignore the evidence, surround yourself with yes men, just wait until something goes wrong and watch and listen to the howls of how nobody knew anything.
Exodus? well what ever it's called, it is accelerating.

LHR rain: I totally agree with you, I'm very stupid. If nobody leaves and everybody outside of EK chooses to join it would alleviate all of your problems and vindicate your friendly British management.

Latest rumour doing the rounds is it will be HAH.

I have been following this post with interest and wonder if anyone can tell me if the 90+ hours a month are duty or actual stick time hours. Also if flying ultra long haul how many actual flights a month does it take to accumulate the 90+ hours?

Many thanks.

Those hours my friend are stick time. And on ULRs, your time in the bunk is "factored" so you don't get full credit for the entire flight time.

Thing is bingo, we don't just do ULR flights. We can do a ULR followed by all - night turns to India, depending on your fleet. Short, long and ultra long haul - its the mix thats the killer and that enables them to mess our rosters around. If you just did ULR you would get to 96hrs after 3 trips.

And its stick time (including bunk) not duty hours when we talk of 90+hrs a month. Dread to think how many duty hours we do.

The amount of pilots leaving in August is approx 35 give or take. I have seen an e mail to verify this.
Also, many F/Os and a few Captains have been getting calls on days off, so yes we are short all round. I will not be doing any flights on my days off.

Helen-D I hope not :ugh::ugh: But could believe it.

Bingofuel. Its block time, chocks off-chocks on. Duty time is ways more. ULRs are >14 hrs, so you could do 3 x ULRs a month. Of course EK say that when you are augmenting, only the time in the seat count :=:=

SyB :zzz::zzz:

Many thanks for the prompt, concise responses. I did not appreciate you did short, long and ULR
routes as a mix.

BF

How many pilots will new panama service require?
 

If Panama operates every day then how many pilots will it require per month?

( the staffing problem will become even worse)

Desdi, I think it will require no more that the SIN/BNE trip which goes a380 the same month Panama starts. What a coincidence.

A new ULR route soaks up around 50 pilots.

The JD guys must be disappointed to lose the Sing/Brisbane trip. Wonderful timings that one.

Has the SIN-BNE been confirmed/announced? I thought it was the SIN-MEL which is much better :cool:

Sorry Helen, I meant SIN/MEL.

I seem to remember appalling levels of tiredness and inattention on both?

GD,

Frying pan and fire spring to mind ��

I spent a little time renewing my visa the other day and bumped into 4 mates that are leaving. I find it pretty unsettling. Looking tonight I have gone up 25 places on the seniority list in the last 4 months which doesn't sound much but I am in the top 300.

There are really 3 choices:
1. Flog the employees until it goes horribly wrong.
2. Buy a way out of the hole by increasing remuneration massively.
3. Get the company out of the employees lives. Stop being petty, anything that cost the company nothing but improves the QOL of the employees should be implemented immediately. Recognise inflation exists and increase pay commensurately.

Option 3 gets the employees on side, they tell their mates what a great place EK is to work at, the snowball rolls and the problem is fixed in the medium term. Benefits to the company happy employees that support the goals of the company, improved service and happy repeat customers.

So a fix is actually not that difficult and can be achieved without too much cost to the company. Will it happen....?

Increased Bond for New Hires
 

I noticed that EK has recently extended its training bond for ALL new hires (type rated or not) from 3 years to 5 years. Seems like a disincentive.

Green D

LR 3 is spot on.

One of the toughest seats to man here is the LHS & RHS of the A330.

Countless stories of guys showing up offered the Boeing and then being placed on the A330. If you don't believe it ask the recruiter in the interview. No way he/she could tell you otherwise. That would be a direct and explicit lie.

To give you an idea of the integrity of our HR - every year we do two ground school wash ups with mgt & HR - and it's the only chance we get to exchange our views as a group. We regularly bring up legitimate and serious concerns.

EVERY time we are told by the HR woman (always female) - "fair enough we will look into it and get back to you on it."

Never and I mean never - has anyone of the group of usually 12 guys EVER had the courtesy of a HR rep taking the time to copy those 12 guys and give feed back.

These people are meant to be at the pinnacle of principled professionalism by being at a managerial level in charge of the livlihood of us, the white colored professionals at the tip of the spear of this might mega PR op.

They DONT CARE. Ive ask every pilot I flown with over the years - "do they ever get back to you?"

Not going to happen

So come on over...but you have been warned a d BTW that villa you were shown is like the fleet you came for ...don't hold your breath.

f.

Over the last several years, condition and QOL have steadily decreased at Emirates.

To anyone who has been here and witnessed this, it seems a good reason to be disheartened, unmotivated, and keen to look elsewhere.

Thing is, this misses an essential truth- QOL worldwide for ANYONE but a very small percentage of the worlds population has been at best stagnant, and for most negative across the board of socio-economic status or professional qualification.

This is borne out by a simple question most EK pilots have trouble answering- where do you go?

Even the Americans can find this question hard to answer- I recently had a conversation with a US pilot who related how, despite being eminently qualified, could not get an interview with a US major as they are still in the mindset that a bright-eyed young regional pilot, of which there are still many, is the ideal candidate. Many US flight departments can't get their minds around why a guy would leave an imminent wide-body, international command to come fly an MD-80 as FO out of pig-knuckle Arkansas.

But, even if every American in EK got a job with a major, that still leaves 90% of the company.

The Europeans might go to Ryan, Norwegian or EZ- all, in this era of a supposed competitive market for pilots, offering packages that are materially inferior, but have the advantage of being in or at least near a lot of peoples home.

Some will leave for that, but it is never likely to match the number coming the other way, and still leaves the 80% or so who originate from other geographical regions, and for whom there is nothing on offer that even remotely compares.

So where? China? Perhaps for a few, but the Chinese reputation for reneging on contracts, and the view that most Chinese corporate cultures are even worse that EK will limit it to a few.

Bottom line- attrition may become problematic, and recruitment challenging- but a huge exodus with no ability to replace? IMHO very unlikely.

How they factor your bunk hrs towards your 92 hrs base pay?


2/1 or how.... Flying 110 hrs UL trips and credit for 92 since the bunk hrs factored?