How management stitch up Captains . . .
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fireloop
411A is right, and you are wrong. In the countries he and I are thinking of, a fax/telex from your fleet manager or flight ops director authorising you to do something is a legal authorisation. What they are doing is varying the rules set out in the company's Ops manual. They can do that, but they may have to answer for it later if it was a bad call.
You (the pilot) are now effectively operating under a variation to your Ops Manual, and it does hold up in court, assuming that you don't do something terminally stupid.
Of course any pilot that does something that thoroughly contradicts the local legislation (for example conducting a three-engine ferry flight with pax on board) is likely to end up with a problem. Judgement is required.
411A is right, and you are wrong. In the countries he and I are thinking of, a fax/telex from your fleet manager or flight ops director authorising you to do something is a legal authorisation. What they are doing is varying the rules set out in the company's Ops manual. They can do that, but they may have to answer for it later if it was a bad call.
You (the pilot) are now effectively operating under a variation to your Ops Manual, and it does hold up in court, assuming that you don't do something terminally stupid.
Of course any pilot that does something that thoroughly contradicts the local legislation (for example conducting a three-engine ferry flight with pax on board) is likely to end up with a problem. Judgement is required.
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Don and 411a are right on the money and it is not to hard understand where they are coming from.
Loop of fire
Don has seen far too much water. so much that I think he is taking the p**s out of you.
Loop of fire
Don has seen far too much water. so much that I think he is taking the p**s out of you.
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My own aviation background is very limited so I don't often contribute. I do have some maritime experience and be sure that "commercial decisions", pressure, call it what you like, do regularly affect the life of a ship's captain as well.
Some years ago a large ship of a major shipping line was due to depart a North African Port in windy conditions. The Harbourmaster declared the port closed and would not provide a pilot for the ship's departure. Ship's master consulted head office, was happy to leave port without a pilot (not illegal), and made the commercial decision to go. Navigation was straight forward and there was no problem until a large trough in the main channel resulted in the ship hitting the bottom, causing a significant hole. After assessing the situation for a couple of hours, it was established that the ship wasn't in danger of sinking. Company had another ship about to go into dry dock in Piraeus (Athens) which could be vacated so a second commercial decision was made and course was set for the Greek port. The point being that the company would have been at great financial disadvantage if they had put the ship into the queue for the North African shipyard; it could have taken months. It all worked out. I watched the safe arrival of the ship at Piraeus, albeit with a considerable list.
The Commercial Department was most grateful to the master who was duly congratulated. But... the insurers were less impressed and insisted on the sacking of one of the company's senior masters.
As someone said earlier, the captain has got to "get it right" whether he goes for or against the commercial decision.
Niaga Dessip
Some years ago a large ship of a major shipping line was due to depart a North African Port in windy conditions. The Harbourmaster declared the port closed and would not provide a pilot for the ship's departure. Ship's master consulted head office, was happy to leave port without a pilot (not illegal), and made the commercial decision to go. Navigation was straight forward and there was no problem until a large trough in the main channel resulted in the ship hitting the bottom, causing a significant hole. After assessing the situation for a couple of hours, it was established that the ship wasn't in danger of sinking. Company had another ship about to go into dry dock in Piraeus (Athens) which could be vacated so a second commercial decision was made and course was set for the Greek port. The point being that the company would have been at great financial disadvantage if they had put the ship into the queue for the North African shipyard; it could have taken months. It all worked out. I watched the safe arrival of the ship at Piraeus, albeit with a considerable list.
The Commercial Department was most grateful to the master who was duly congratulated. But... the insurers were less impressed and insisted on the sacking of one of the company's senior masters.
As someone said earlier, the captain has got to "get it right" whether he goes for or against the commercial decision.
Niaga Dessip
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Without a knowledge of the employer of each poster on this thread, plus the characteristics of each of those employers, this thread is always going to be extremely misleading.
At on end of the scale is the employer who will comply with regulations and accept the decisions of it's Captains.
At the other end of the scale is the employer who will appear to comply with regulations (documentation etc) but who will impose their will to suit their own needs, regardless of regulations (verbal threats etc).
If you've never worked for the second category, then no ammount of wittering by me or anyone else will convince you of the real situation.
.....and when the accident happens....well.......pilot error, of course.
At on end of the scale is the employer who will comply with regulations and accept the decisions of it's Captains.
At the other end of the scale is the employer who will appear to comply with regulations (documentation etc) but who will impose their will to suit their own needs, regardless of regulations (verbal threats etc).
If you've never worked for the second category, then no ammount of wittering by me or anyone else will convince you of the real situation.
.....and when the accident happens....well.......pilot error, of course.
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Caractacus,
Sadly airline management have considerable control over pilots in these matters. As my ex airline are appealing my victory in an industrial tribunal I will not reveal the airline or contentious details. The relevant bit comes from the staff manual, this bit will be found in everyones as it is European law:
"It is the duty of any employee having having concerns about health and safety issues to raise these concerns with the company".
I complied with this requirement in a manner that led the Tribunal to describe me as "a stickler for correct procedures and proper protocols", however the Chief Executive in the witness stand (on oath) had described my raising these concerns as
"OUTRAGEOUS, ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS".
The Tribunal writen oppinion is very interesting but although a public document I wont publish details here prior to the 'shooting' ending.
Pilots get sacked for acting with integrity. Take care. This is not a third world airline.
Best wishes
Andrew.
Sadly airline management have considerable control over pilots in these matters. As my ex airline are appealing my victory in an industrial tribunal I will not reveal the airline or contentious details. The relevant bit comes from the staff manual, this bit will be found in everyones as it is European law:
"It is the duty of any employee having having concerns about health and safety issues to raise these concerns with the company".
I complied with this requirement in a manner that led the Tribunal to describe me as "a stickler for correct procedures and proper protocols", however the Chief Executive in the witness stand (on oath) had described my raising these concerns as
"OUTRAGEOUS, ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS".
The Tribunal writen oppinion is very interesting but although a public document I wont publish details here prior to the 'shooting' ending.
Pilots get sacked for acting with integrity. Take care. This is not a third world airline.
Best wishes
Andrew.
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How management stitch up Captains . . .
jayteeto quote
posted 2nd May 2005 13:34 ___ _ _ __ _
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lets call it by the correct name.... BULLYING
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After several years of talking with HSE/CAA about bullying, pilot health problems, and their effects on safety, I discovered that (surprise) I was being subjected to 'fogging' ie deliberate misinformation, misinterpretation and mistakes. All of this with delays and excuses.
I wrote to the Prime Minister's office. This activates responses within the system. One such response continued the process of fogging and so I took the step of contradicting the Department of Transport Aviation Division's letter and put it bluntly. "Dear Prime Minister ...Mr. Evans summed up my letter incorrectly. The bottom line is that undermining the confidence of pilots with bullying and harassment must stop. It is dangerous. It causes illness, including alcoholism. It has been an element in many incidents and accidents, among them, for an example close to home, the Trident crash at Staines"
Whether or not this Prime Minister will reappear after the election this letter is a matter of record and I will pursue it - after all - justice has no expiry date.
( "Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook)
posted 2nd May 2005 13:34 ___ _ _ __ _
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lets call it by the correct name.... BULLYING
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After several years of talking with HSE/CAA about bullying, pilot health problems, and their effects on safety, I discovered that (surprise) I was being subjected to 'fogging' ie deliberate misinformation, misinterpretation and mistakes. All of this with delays and excuses.
I wrote to the Prime Minister's office. This activates responses within the system. One such response continued the process of fogging and so I took the step of contradicting the Department of Transport Aviation Division's letter and put it bluntly. "Dear Prime Minister ...Mr. Evans summed up my letter incorrectly. The bottom line is that undermining the confidence of pilots with bullying and harassment must stop. It is dangerous. It causes illness, including alcoholism. It has been an element in many incidents and accidents, among them, for an example close to home, the Trident crash at Staines"
Whether or not this Prime Minister will reappear after the election this letter is a matter of record and I will pursue it - after all - justice has no expiry date.
( "Justice has no expiry date" - John Cook)
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This thread is one of the reasons we join unions, especially if one is working in the "First World". My own attitude, for what it is worth goes along the lines: "Can we safely operate with this fault?" If yes, but we are prevented by our Ops Manuals, then, as you so kindly asking me, you won't mind sending me a "Get out of Jail free card" will you?" Waiver arrives, we go. Usually, engineer is dispatched post haste!
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Piltdown
but what about managers who state
" I will never crash because god sits on my shoulder"
and
"The only way to get the job done is by breaking the law".
The latter comment was in a hotel bar at a staff meeting to the director of Flight Ops. His repy
"I dont want to hear about that".
The whole team heard both.
but what about managers who state
" I will never crash because god sits on my shoulder"
and
"The only way to get the job done is by breaking the law".
The latter comment was in a hotel bar at a staff meeting to the director of Flight Ops. His repy
"I dont want to hear about that".
The whole team heard both.
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How about...
"I will not be told how to operate my aircraft by a bloody pilot."
"We have got a verbal exmption from the (Local Aviation Authority)." mmm, right!
"You are looking in the wrong Operations Manual." (!!!)
"Why not, everyone else does." Sadly, they did.
"There's nothing wrong with it, it's the indication at fault." It wasn't, the de-icing had actually been u/s for months. See previous line.
"I understand you've grounded an aircraft? You are relieved from duty, report to Co HQ immediately to explain yourself." See two previous lines.
"What's the matter, the FO can see his instruments!" Your panel is in total darkness...
"Why not, the Chief pilot has just landed." At an NDB only airfield in 0700m and ovc.001 with no diversions much better.
"Do you mean to say that you are refusing to operate?"
"Do you realize how much your decision has cost the company?"
"We do not apply this paragraph in our Operations Manual."
"What do you mean, you're in discretion? When you left @£% you promised you would do it!" Bloody hadn't! Quite the opposite actually, they'd insisted we went regardless.
"You fly that &*%$ing aeroplane or you are history."
"Nonsense, of course it's inside the AOC coverage area!" It wasn't, by quite a long way. And operations there continued for some months subsequently.
"No, the daily will not run out at midnight (of the day after it was signed). As long as you are airborne by midnight..." Utter 'orrocks!
"but surely there is no icing, it's a blue sky summer day here!" and I'm 1200 miles away..."
"If you don't want your job here we have x00 applicants on file who'd slit your throat for it!"
"If that's your interpretation you'd better be bloody certain about it..." nasty, that one.
"Why can't you just tell them there is no toilet?" What, for two hours?
All the above bar line one NW Eu PT Jet or TP scheduled. Sadly this is standard fare for many operators, with some it is on a daily basis, with others less often but none the less stressful and occasionally thoroughly upsetting for all that. Part of the job, I'm afraid. And IMHO won't change until we start to make CRM understanding and observance mandatory for managers and Operations too. While we are at it, properly trained, licenced professional and accountable Ops departments is the way to go too. Fat chanceF
"I will not be told how to operate my aircraft by a bloody pilot."
"We have got a verbal exmption from the (Local Aviation Authority)." mmm, right!
"You are looking in the wrong Operations Manual." (!!!)
"Why not, everyone else does." Sadly, they did.
"There's nothing wrong with it, it's the indication at fault." It wasn't, the de-icing had actually been u/s for months. See previous line.
"I understand you've grounded an aircraft? You are relieved from duty, report to Co HQ immediately to explain yourself." See two previous lines.
"What's the matter, the FO can see his instruments!" Your panel is in total darkness...
"Why not, the Chief pilot has just landed." At an NDB only airfield in 0700m and ovc.001 with no diversions much better.
"Do you mean to say that you are refusing to operate?"
"Do you realize how much your decision has cost the company?"
"We do not apply this paragraph in our Operations Manual."
"What do you mean, you're in discretion? When you left @£% you promised you would do it!" Bloody hadn't! Quite the opposite actually, they'd insisted we went regardless.
"You fly that &*%$ing aeroplane or you are history."
"Nonsense, of course it's inside the AOC coverage area!" It wasn't, by quite a long way. And operations there continued for some months subsequently.
"No, the daily will not run out at midnight (of the day after it was signed). As long as you are airborne by midnight..." Utter 'orrocks!
"but surely there is no icing, it's a blue sky summer day here!" and I'm 1200 miles away..."
"If you don't want your job here we have x00 applicants on file who'd slit your throat for it!"
"If that's your interpretation you'd better be bloody certain about it..." nasty, that one.
"Why can't you just tell them there is no toilet?" What, for two hours?
All the above bar line one NW Eu PT Jet or TP scheduled. Sadly this is standard fare for many operators, with some it is on a daily basis, with others less often but none the less stressful and occasionally thoroughly upsetting for all that. Part of the job, I'm afraid. And IMHO won't change until we start to make CRM understanding and observance mandatory for managers and Operations too. While we are at it, properly trained, licenced professional and accountable Ops departments is the way to go too. Fat chanceF
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 5th May 2005 at 17:19.
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1. What legal authority does an airline manager have over a Captain?
The regional airline I work for in the US is probably one of the worst in regards to management/pilot relationship. It says in our GOM that a pilot should be first verbally warned, then warned in writing before being terminated. Oddly enough, steps one and two are always being left out. The pilots get their jobs back though through the grievance process a few months later, and the company has to give them back pay, it seems however this intimidation is done purely to control the pilot group.
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This is also why we have regulators as well. The mob I work for are saints by comparison with the showers that some you lot appear to work for. I know I am lucky. But getting back on thread: If you are feeling the heat off your company for doing something downright dangerous or illegal (or both) then don't do it! You foul up (or the plane fouls up) or you are just unlucky - your widow and kids won't eat (or you will get hammered if alive (quite rightly!)). Either way, your time in aviation is over. Do the professional thing and dob the buggers into the CAA if you are operating into or out of the UK. There's no future working for organisations who ask you to break the law.
My god, I've said something positive about the CAA!
My god, I've said something positive about the CAA!
BEALZEBEB: Let's clarify for those who have never worked for an airline that, although Captains do indeed have the role of aircraft safety managers, we are looked down upon by upper mgmt at many, if not most airlines, as mere labor, and are only thought of as financial "liabilities", in every sense of the word. No matter what we decide, as a union, to give up in terms of pay and work rule concessions to help our airlines weather the horrible fuel prices etc, it is never enough. We are not "Very Special People". This label only applies to upper management, except possibly at Southwest or JetBlue.
Very few US airline presidents or CEOs, these days, ever had a true interest in commercial (or military) aviation when they were young. They have no real operational background with an airline (maint., dispatch, loading bags, passenger service, flying as a pilot etc), but are instead trained in areas of finance or legal specialties, or both. One slight exception is the fact that Continental's CEO, Gordon Bethune, somehow earned his pilot ratings and has apparently delivered some 757s from the factory with either an IP or Check Airman in the other seat. American Trans Air was started by a pilot.
By the way, off the topic, but read about the historic, record (?)profits at the larger US petroleum companies
. One of our narrow body (also a part-time T-37 IP) FOs has a father who is in marketing with one of them. When the FO asked his Dad about fuel profits, he told me that his Dad became "silent'.
Very few US airline presidents or CEOs, these days, ever had a true interest in commercial (or military) aviation when they were young. They have no real operational background with an airline (maint., dispatch, loading bags, passenger service, flying as a pilot etc), but are instead trained in areas of finance or legal specialties, or both. One slight exception is the fact that Continental's CEO, Gordon Bethune, somehow earned his pilot ratings and has apparently delivered some 757s from the factory with either an IP or Check Airman in the other seat. American Trans Air was started by a pilot.
By the way, off the topic, but read about the historic, record (?)profits at the larger US petroleum companies
. One of our narrow body (also a part-time T-37 IP) FOs has a father who is in marketing with one of them. When the FO asked his Dad about fuel profits, he told me that his Dad became "silent'.
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How management stitch up Captains . . .
...and what's more, in the US you have to have qualifications to sell real estate, in the UK to be in the safety chain of an airline (there is no safety management system for management itself) ...you need nothing - no qualifications, no experience, no brain. Their errors are not picked up; no manager is ever punished for making safety margins deteriorate. The shame of all this is that there are no new errors - history tells us that there is nothing new happening - the evidence is always in some crash report somewhere.
The management role in the sequence of events that can provoke accidents is not a new idea. It was implicated in the Air Ontario Crash at Dryden, Ontario, where evidence cites the President and Chief Executive Officer personally selected senior management personnel, not on merit, but, “in the entrepreneurial management style of a man who has built his company from a small family business.” These managers may have been out of their depth in an operation which demanded considerable experience.
For instance, in the Inquiry into Air Ontario Crash at Dryden the commission heard that the effectiveness of CRM is "contingent upon the committment of the employer and the employees involved. The attainment of such a commitment is not easily achieved. Without a dedicated commitment by the employer....such training is llikely to have little or no impact on its primary goal of safety enhancement." I would say further to this, that human nature is such that managers who are out of their depth WILL resort to bullying and coercion; a poor corporate culture WILL develop. CRM has become just another tool to whip Captains over the head - to test them, to tell them they are failing, to blame them Frankly, CRM should mean CORPORATE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT - and managers should be tested too. I think the public would be shocked to know that they aren't.
The management role in the sequence of events that can provoke accidents is not a new idea. It was implicated in the Air Ontario Crash at Dryden, Ontario, where evidence cites the President and Chief Executive Officer personally selected senior management personnel, not on merit, but, “in the entrepreneurial management style of a man who has built his company from a small family business.” These managers may have been out of their depth in an operation which demanded considerable experience.
For instance, in the Inquiry into Air Ontario Crash at Dryden the commission heard that the effectiveness of CRM is "contingent upon the committment of the employer and the employees involved. The attainment of such a commitment is not easily achieved. Without a dedicated commitment by the employer....such training is llikely to have little or no impact on its primary goal of safety enhancement." I would say further to this, that human nature is such that managers who are out of their depth WILL resort to bullying and coercion; a poor corporate culture WILL develop. CRM has become just another tool to whip Captains over the head - to test them, to tell them they are failing, to blame them Frankly, CRM should mean CORPORATE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT - and managers should be tested too. I think the public would be shocked to know that they aren't.
