Tired budget jet pilots 'endanger passengers' - The Times

[easyprison]

The problem with EJ is, crews work long hours, 4 sector days, some of the bases, BFS etc do 6 sector days all week. Low morale also makes people more drained.

Most EJ pilots would agree that low morale in the work place at the moment is very draining in it's self.

[Berenger Saunier]

.....If you don't like it.....

Shiva H. Chrishnu, what a bunch of whinging twirps! If you've not got the constitution to work for a company in business to turn a profit, LEAVE! The way you lot carry on you'd think airline flying was a sweat shop. The REAL problem here is that some pilots genuinely enjoy whining like stuck pigs; egomaniacal primadonas that we sometimes are. Bottom line is quite simple, chaps.

If you don't like the terms and conditions of your employment, RESIGN. There's any number of hard working, satisfied professionals ready and willing to take your place.

I am already happy I could work in a major in good conditions for 15 years

kanik2000: that'll be Sabena you're refering to, I suppose, the world famous basket case and sheltered workshop for otherwise unemployable Belgian militants which managed to turn a profit twice in its over 70 year history?

Get over it, girls. The reason we have jobs at all is because we're in the Airline BUSINESS! The objective of businesses, I thought, was to actually make money?

[Yarpy]

For 'Berenger Saunier ' read 'Greener Urines'.

To quote: "The reason we have jobs at all is because we're in the Airline BUSINESS! The objective of businesses, I thought, was to actually make money?"

Actually, the role of the pilot exercising the priveleges of his licence for an airline is to conduct safe and timely air transport operations.

Necessarily, if the pilot is worked to the point of being fatigued then that role is compromised. Individuals will obviously speak their minds on such issues.

Some years ago, we went through this issue with Junior Doctors. Eventually the Government saw sense and things improved. One only hopes this will happen for pilots too.

[Whippersnapper]

Is Berenger on the level, or just winding us up? Is it just coincidence his initials are BS?

If not, he's either a manager or very "orange", and is one of the group that have allowed our profession to slide so much. I agree with what BS says about moving on - it seems the only way to send the message, but where to?

In the mean time BS, show some self respect and stand up against idiot managers, rather than begging for more rubbish.

[Few Cloudy]

Languedoc? Sounds more like Papa Doc! Anyway nice try - a little too obvious though - next time try it with a more sincere tone and you may take in more people...

[WangEye]

I thought this was a serious issue being discussed seriously, with(to quote one of your contibutors) an almost unique amount of common agreement. It seems to be slipping lately into the usual banter - a shame as I directed my MP towards this thread and he has undertaken to pursue the issue in Parliament - and is probably having this thread monitored by one his researchers.

WWW, one for sick, Mentaleena, Rat 5, Spatacan, and others have made serious and sensible contributions, perhaps someone with scientific/human performance knowledge might also contribute.

And this is a genuinely serious issue, one of safety. In the railway and the road industries there appear to be tighter limits on short and medium term work periods. If present rules for aviation are not working then they need to be either changed quickly or some means found of allowing pilots suffering fatigue (for whatever reason) to actually exercise their responsibilities without affecting their careers. (This reminds me of two macho teachers that used to boast how far and fast they could drive a school minibus on long continental trips - new rules put an end to their risk taking - luckily before disaster struck). The fact is, there will always be some who really can take the heat but, i) they sometimes push their luck, and ii) all the others are then compared with them. Human factors clearly have to factor in human variations - whilst ruling out obvious incapability.

The recent points re: business don't wash either - businesses are regulated - cheap, unsafe cars cannot be offered for sale, child labour has been banned, health and safety rules imposed, dangerous toys kept out, food safety carefully monitored - aviation safety is no different - it has to be afforded. And surely, safety is the stuff of your professionalism, what most of your skill is about. What is up for discussion is how fatigued are pilots and what can be done to ameliorate the risks such fatigue causes. There is another, parallel issue, again of concern and again being addressed in other industries, of quality of life, but I can't help thinking that solve one and you will solve the other.

If you all write to your MP as I did, then at least you have registered your concern. I know some have, and been ignored, but I cannot believe every MP will be so dismissive and 50 or 60 MP's making enquiries will soon get things moving - so long as the case is seriously put and professionally presented.

Sorry to give such a school teacherly lecture - it's my profession!! - but I thought things were moving well initially and was happy to do my bit (I have family connections in aviation).

WE (not a pilot).

[loaded1]

BS....says it all.

If you were anything to do with commercial aviation and knew what you were talking about you simply would not post such dangerous nonsense. You are either a frustrated, (and rightly so it would appear from your post), wannabe or a complete nutter.

Go and play with your scalextric kit and leave aviation to people who care about the real issues, which is SAFETY above ANYTHING else (dont say "profit" - profit is only possible in the long term if safety is the absolute bottom line of EVERY enterprise).

My view is that you are either sad, mad or both, but I do know that you have no place amongst professional pilots.

[aardvark keeper]

I'm with the rest, BS - absolute crap!

[Berenger Saunier]

Same old bitches, different day

WangEye, if you're not a pilot, with all due respect you're arguing from a point of ignorance, no matter how noble your motivations.

and is one of the group that have allowed our profession to slide so much.

You reveal your colours, Whippersnapper. Slide? You'd like to go back to the days of bloated, loss making leviathans with one sector days followed by a night in a five star? Come on now.

AOC holders submit a flight and duty time limitations schedule as Chapter 7 of their OPS Manual. All are reviewed and then either approved or not by their respective regulatory authorities who's responsibility it is to ensure "safety above all else", loaded1. Sounds to me like you're in the wrong profession, and yes once again,if you don't like the terms and conditions of your employment, THEN RESIGN and let others less inclined toward bitching have a go.

[Fifty Above]

BS seems that pilots are taking your advise - there have been over 20 pilot resignations at easyJet in the past couple of weeks.

EasyJet is the only airline which currently rosters 6.5 day weeks every week!

[RAT 5]

BS.

You miss the point. This is not an epidemic of whinging. It is a campaign, amongst the most committed professionals in the business, to protect and promote that very business. Don't go on about high salaries, and cosy nests etc. There has never been a large airline that has gone bust due to pilots holding it to ransom. It has always been crass management of many different hue and reasonings. Sobelair being the most recent shining example. Pilots are the largest group in any airline that have the strongest wish for its survival, and will dig deep and suffer much to try and achieve that. It has been demonstarted numerous times. However, that sacrifice has been abused for too long. Now, there are enough pilots questioning this and reacting against it. That is right & healthy.
Read the characteristics and personal makeup that is specified in pilot application forms; study the physcometric tests that we have to pass to enter the profession; listen to the questions asked at interview about your managemenmt skills and attitudes. Then ask yourself if the person who fits that bill is also the same type of weak minded whimp who should roll over ask for more of the same when treated with the disrespect that is awash in the industry at present. The person who would do that would be not the strong minded clear thinking member of a crew that I would want in control when the aerodymanic Sh@t hits the fan, or even the guiding hand to solve the everyday problems that occur on the ground in the remote parts of the network.
I have worked in a couple of companies where the crews were weak, and went the extra mile everyday, "to help the company", were paid 70% of the local competitors, rolled up there sleeves whenever asked, worked on days off for nothing extra, because the boss would not employ SBY crews etc etc. It went bust 3 times, as did another.
It is the managers, who have short term greed in their eyes for the share holders or themselves, who tip airlines over the cliff, not the crews. There are very few managers who stay with the same airline for 30 years, but there are many crews. So where does loyalty really lie, Eh? It is the senior managers who line their pockets with golden takeoffs & landings, waste fortunes in one corner while trying to save pennies in another. So much could be done to improve things for free. Where there is a will there is a way. Big problem is there is NO will. When airlines go bust the guilty managers usually move on to new lucrative pastures leaving the specialist crews to forage in the scrapyard of aviation for a few years.
Many crews have seen it all before over a lifetime of experience. Many managers are not so rich in aviation heritage and refuse to listen. The best new officers in the miltary followed the knarled wisened Sgt. Major's advice and said "Carry ON". Sadly today, the prevalent attitude is start with a clean sheet of paper and reinvent the wheel. There are too many square wheels out there.
This is not a comment on LCA business models, but on man management techniques and leadership.

It need not be this way!

[Whippersnapper]

BS:

I'm sorry, but what do you mean I'm showing my true colours? I'm not making any pretences here.

Your latest arguement seems to be the standard management/crewing response "it's legal". Standing in the middle of the road during rush hour wearing a blindfold is legal, but that doesn't make it safe, sensible or reasonable. CAP 371 is years out of date, and the loopholes are being abused by operators left right and centre.

You seem keen to preserve a macho image of being superhuman, capable of any demands made upon you. Ask yourself whether you intend to complete a full career with the patterns and conditions you're in now (assuming you are just a regular full time line pilot).

As for suggesting I resign; you're well behind the curve on that - I left the orange sweat shop last year. And before you suggest that makes me ill-informed, I still have enough contacts to know exactly what is happening on the linethere, and I know it's only getting worse. I took a large reduction in pay that I could ill-afford to get away from the dangerously fatiguing rostering that was taking place. Throughout my entire employment at the company I never asked for or craved more money, only sensible and decent conditions (principally rosters). Most others were the same. It is not an issue of pay but of conditions. You seem to be suckked in by the management smokescreen of making everything about money. More pay does not make a safer pilot, or in this instance a much happier one. Safe scheduling and decent conditions would.

[Mentaleena]

Berenger Saunier,

As RAT 5 has above pointed out the crux of this subject so coherently, what part of it don't you understand or disagree with?
Keep it short though as this thread is certainly NOT about you, or your ALTERNATIVE thinking.
This thread is about the degeneration of our working conditions, about the stealthy erosion of safety, about a generation of professionals in their prime not being able to see their working lives to a conclusion, as a result of working conditions befitting a bunch of market traders.
There are people from my airline joining easyJet, but the reality is we are interviewing just as many orange refugees, a circle of madness, one may conclude.
Get real, wind your neck in, or indeed join 411A in Arizona!

[discretion]

Have to agree with Mentaleena on this subject.As an ex orangeman ,I found the rostering totally impossible to live with.Its not the money,but a safe,decent rostering program is all that is required by most guys to stop them walking.

However,management insist on max productivity,and whilst safety is preached,this is compromised by potentially unsafe rostering.,3earlies,followed by 3/4 lates.,body clock(or circadian rhythm if you prefer) is totally awash.

Recent events in BRU airspace highlight this problem?

[loaded1]

Well BS....your latest post does nothing to change my mind: you are a dangerous nutter who has no place in aviation.

You evidently don't know what you are talking about either. CAP 371 allows several systemmic abuses, tacitly admitted to by the CAA who have issued new "guidance" to operators on the matter. Shamefully, this is not to be binding for quite some time. The so-called "Simpson proposals" in regard to European FTL's were quite worse- a totally retrograde step.

If you think an single pilot on his own can survive by individually refusing to operate a service due to fatigue or the nature of the roster itself you have clearly not served any time in a contemporary airline, or if you have you are a management stooge, from Orange Land, by the sound of it.

What individual pilots can do, however, is join BALPA's campaign for FTL's based on objective science and campaign to eliminate anomalies like a certain lo-cost operator who appears to be UK-based yet keeps his aircraft on the Irish register to take account of their non-scientifically derived allowance for, amongst other things, multiple early starts. They can also join grassroots campaigns such as that forming here on this bulletin board in this thread by writing to their MP to seek to further a demonstrably just cause.

As BALPA says in its campaign, we will fly what the science says, not what greedy opportunists seek at the ultimate expense of the safety of the fare paying public.

Lastly, old chap or chappess, a spot of "netiquette":-
there's no need to SHOUT by using capitals or bold type. We can all hear you quite well enough as it is.

[RAT 5]

There was a program a few evenings ago on 5 LIVE radio. It was the "drive'program at 17.00. There was a representative from GMB union. The topic of discussion was "the worst shift patterns". One caller, a nurse, was knackered doing 3 days, 3 off, 3 nights, 3 off. A 35 hour week. Her complaint was not enough time to recover during the days off after the night shifts. Wow. It sounded a doddle to what we do. From all the callers, no matter what kind of shift pattern they had, all complained about fitting a normal family/social life into their pattern, and recovering to normal energy levels after disruptive nights. And that from people who had a regular pattern, known in advance!
The GMB man said that there was more "working directive legislation"soon to be introduced, which would address some basic matters. Certainly a max 48 hour week was one. I wonder how many of the travelling public realise pilots can be rostered upto 55 hours, in a random and changing work pattern, and possible extension to 60 hours as necessary? In one past company, over 50 hours was regular, but the CP would not acknowledge pilots worked any kind of shifts. Therefore there was no special consideration necessary regarding roster patterns????
190hrs in 4 weeks is nearly 1 weeks extra work per month over a ground based 9-5ér. What's acceptable about that?
CAP 371 is being targeted as out of date. Perhaps true. One set of rules does not cover the myriad of operations. However, what has always been there for many years, but never respected by management nor policed by the CAA, is the edict that companies should "roster to the SPIRIT"of 371." If that violation of ethics was shoved under the correct noses and included in this campaign, along with the total disregard of other EU directives on compensation for public transport workers, it might open a crack in the politicians' blinkers.
What is also a remarkable distortion of the truth, is management who insist they do not own you 24hrs /day. Yet, they will change morning duties into evening duties, nights at home into night stop overs, late starts into early starts, and not accept any excuse for refusal. Free time becomes duty time, evenings free become early to bed; and all if they give you 12 hours notice. If that is not 24 hour beck & call, then what is? And often only 2 days to recover.

There is much that needs changing and it is not simply the max duty times. The whole pattern within which duty is pefomed needs a massive overhaul.

[Berenger Saunier]

Ah, the BALPA recruiting drive!

you are a dangerous nutter who has no place in aviation.

Sticks and stones, loaded1.

The really funny thing about you and your shamelessly unveiled recruiting drive for the discredited and ineffective British Airways Line Pilots Association (BALPA), loaded1, is that after all that has hapened to our industry in recent years, you and those like you still cling limpet-like to your tired old leftist mantra that fell with the Berlin Wall. Pilots good: management bad, evil, out to shaft us at every turn, etc........yawn. What gets me, though, is that despite the overwhelming evidence of the destructive and, lets face it, down right moronic activity of pilots unions in the past hundred years, you spout their righteousness with a truly missionary zeal! Well done, loaded1!

Your comments about the Orange People and their unfortunate rostering habbits are well noted, but then I choose not to work for them, as is your perfect right too.....assuming you have time between episodes of lunatic bluster to actually fly an aircraft.....

and campaign to eliminate anomalies like a certain lo-cost operator who appears to be UK-based yet keeps his aircraft on the Irish register to take account of their non-scientifically derived allowance for, amongst other things, multiple early starts.

This is my favourite bit. I happen to work for this "certain lo-cost (sic) operator" and can assure you that 5 earlies in a row followed by three sacrosanct days off then 5 lates, is a thousand times less harrowing than the nonsense the Orange People are forced to dish out in response to CAP371. While my employer has a substantial presence at EGSS, loaded1, we are not based there, we're based all over Europe in 8 locations, for the moment. Can't imagine what "among other things" refers to...but then something tells me that your next shrill little shriek will let me know.

One parting thought, loaded 1, and thanks for the censure following my use of boldface type and capitals, by the way....but they're used advisedly. If you don't like the terms and conditions of your employment, loaded1, RESIGN. I'm sure a man of your obvious character will have chief pilots lining up to fight over you.

[maxalt]

Wasn't I married to you once?

[one four sick]

BS or is it BO?

Your love of Ryanair is noted.
However is it not time to start "negotiating" your next 5 year agreement with MOL? I for one will be eagerly awaiting the outcome of this battle as he will give every drop of his blood in order to extract all of YOURS.
Will we see you here next year, ranting and raving about "leave if you don't like it"? Or will you be keeping quiet as your own T&Cs erode as they bound to, or perhaps you are expecting improvements? Your loyalty means NOTHING to Ryanair, or to us on this forum.

[Whippersnapper]

BS:

Well, that explains it! The crews at EZY and Bmi are desperate to get agreements similar to RYA's, but their respective managements won't do it (for no reasons other than beligerence or arrogance). You are already working on a much better schedule than most of us, so stop saying that our lot is fine an that we're all just whining. Try working for EZY and see what bad rostering is about before you write again.