Article by Simon Calder of the Independent
sent to S.Calder
I have to disagree with the article you recently wrote about this subject. Pilots are paid for when this happens
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE
Please be more balanced in your reporting.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE
Please be more balanced in your reporting.
aka Capt PPRuNe
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OK, so you sent a rude email to Mr Calder. By doing so, you have now denigrated our profession much better than Mr Calder could have done!
Will his reference to your rude letter even be able to prove that you are even a pilot, never mind a professional one? Knee jerk reaction such as has been exposed in this thread serves no purpose but to make fools of those of you who are unable to think laterally, never mind even an inch ahead!
I, for one, am becoming increasingly despondent with the level of debate and content from contributors to this forum. There are far too many posters whose only qualification with regards to being a professional pilot is the fact that they can read the name of the forum. The time is rapidly approaching when the pretenders and those wannabes who are unable to make the grade will be forced off this forum and into Jet Blast where their comments will enjoy a wider audience and more appropriate reaction.
So Mr Calder got it wrong. Whether it was deliberate or not is not relevant to us on here. We all know that the 900 hours a year divided by 52 weeks and then divided by 7 days will give an unrepresentative answer. It obviously suits him to have a go at some of you lot who are about as hypocritical as it is possible to be. You have a go at journalists, classifying them all into one single category and then make posts on here that make even the worst offenders of the media seem like Pulitzer prize winners!
If someone would like to take the time and effort to write to Mr Calder and explain to him politely where he is wrong and ask him to put a balanced response in his magazine article with a reference to the fact that some posters on this forum are definitely not airline pilots and know not what they harp on about and we are really hard working people trying to make a living whilst managing our fatigue and tiredness, whether from multiple short haul sectors or single long haul sectors that involve being permanently jet-lagged, then we may have a remote chance of regaining some of the lost respect, no thanks to knee-jerk reactions!
I seem to remember an article that I think was written by Simon Calder where he travelled with one crew on an easyJet 4 sector day. He only had to sit in the cabin and write his article and, if I remember correctly, he was feeling absolutely knackered before he started the third sector. He may want to try repeating his experience 5 days in a row and then rethink his opinion whilst remembering he wasn't even working the job at the time.
So, please, keep your knee-jerk reactions to yourselves, especially if you are not even an airline pilot, in which case, do not write to Mr Calder in our defence as it will probably do no good anyway!
Oh, and Simon, I know you do frequent these pages from time to time... please stop baiting the pilots as they are far too tired to respond. Instead you will only get a mailbox full of rude letters from pretend pilots!
Will his reference to your rude letter even be able to prove that you are even a pilot, never mind a professional one? Knee jerk reaction such as has been exposed in this thread serves no purpose but to make fools of those of you who are unable to think laterally, never mind even an inch ahead!
I, for one, am becoming increasingly despondent with the level of debate and content from contributors to this forum. There are far too many posters whose only qualification with regards to being a professional pilot is the fact that they can read the name of the forum. The time is rapidly approaching when the pretenders and those wannabes who are unable to make the grade will be forced off this forum and into Jet Blast where their comments will enjoy a wider audience and more appropriate reaction.
So Mr Calder got it wrong. Whether it was deliberate or not is not relevant to us on here. We all know that the 900 hours a year divided by 52 weeks and then divided by 7 days will give an unrepresentative answer. It obviously suits him to have a go at some of you lot who are about as hypocritical as it is possible to be. You have a go at journalists, classifying them all into one single category and then make posts on here that make even the worst offenders of the media seem like Pulitzer prize winners!
If someone would like to take the time and effort to write to Mr Calder and explain to him politely where he is wrong and ask him to put a balanced response in his magazine article with a reference to the fact that some posters on this forum are definitely not airline pilots and know not what they harp on about and we are really hard working people trying to make a living whilst managing our fatigue and tiredness, whether from multiple short haul sectors or single long haul sectors that involve being permanently jet-lagged, then we may have a remote chance of regaining some of the lost respect, no thanks to knee-jerk reactions!
I seem to remember an article that I think was written by Simon Calder where he travelled with one crew on an easyJet 4 sector day. He only had to sit in the cabin and write his article and, if I remember correctly, he was feeling absolutely knackered before he started the third sector. He may want to try repeating his experience 5 days in a row and then rethink his opinion whilst remembering he wasn't even working the job at the time.
So, please, keep your knee-jerk reactions to yourselves, especially if you are not even an airline pilot, in which case, do not write to Mr Calder in our defence as it will probably do no good anyway!
Oh, and Simon, I know you do frequent these pages from time to time... please stop baiting the pilots as they are far too tired to respond. Instead you will only get a mailbox full of rude letters from pretend pilots!
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Just to show that not all of us have sent rude messages, here's a copy of my e-mail from last night. No response to it though.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I’m writing to correct Simon Calder on his mistaken belief that pilots are only allowed to have 900 duty hours in a year. I can assure Mr Calder that this is not the case. Pilots are allowed 900 hrs FLIGHT time in any 12 month period. This is basically the time that the aircraft is in motion. Duty time is how long you are at work for, report time to finish time. These hours are closely monitored for rest purposes and any airline or pilot should be able to furnish you with details of duty times per year. Failing that have a read of CAP 371 the flight time limitations manual and see how complex and binding the rules are.
Whilst there are limitations on duty time, there isn’t a yearly limit. Having had many duties my self that have lasted up to 36 hours at times, usually whilst positioning after a flight. I suggest Mr Calder checks his facts when he suggests that flight crew are working less hard than any other profession, since my own experiences and seemingly all my colleagues proves otherwise.
I too have suffered chronic fatigue and I was flying no where near the limit of 900 hrs flight time per year. There is a shortage of experienced airline pilots and in drives to reduce costs airline management have kept crewing levels to the lowest possible. Unfortunately this is starting to have an affect with many pilots not reaching retirement age mainly because they are simply worn out and many suffering from organophosphate poisoning. Another hidden issue that has only recently started coming to light. I am certainly considering a career change after 10 years of flying. I have also found my self waking up on a flight deck after a short rest to find the other pilot fast asleep. One thing I will say is that soon there will be an accident caused by this, destroying the excellent safety record we have in UK aviation.
As pilots we work hard, we do get paid well, but no where near the £100,000 level Mr Calder asserts. I do wonder where he gets his figures from though. When I first started flying commercially I earned the grand sum of £14,000 p.a. and even today would dream of £100,000. Could I ask what Mr Calder’s salary would be and whether he feels it should be returned or given to charity in light of the obvious mistakes and conclusion in his piece? His mistakes just annoy people, ours could kill them.
It would be nice to see a response from Mr Calder on this as his assertion that pilot fatigue is not an issue is based on astonishingly incorrect information. I assume this is not normal practice for journalists of the independent?
I’m writing to correct Simon Calder on his mistaken belief that pilots are only allowed to have 900 duty hours in a year. I can assure Mr Calder that this is not the case. Pilots are allowed 900 hrs FLIGHT time in any 12 month period. This is basically the time that the aircraft is in motion. Duty time is how long you are at work for, report time to finish time. These hours are closely monitored for rest purposes and any airline or pilot should be able to furnish you with details of duty times per year. Failing that have a read of CAP 371 the flight time limitations manual and see how complex and binding the rules are.
Whilst there are limitations on duty time, there isn’t a yearly limit. Having had many duties my self that have lasted up to 36 hours at times, usually whilst positioning after a flight. I suggest Mr Calder checks his facts when he suggests that flight crew are working less hard than any other profession, since my own experiences and seemingly all my colleagues proves otherwise.
I too have suffered chronic fatigue and I was flying no where near the limit of 900 hrs flight time per year. There is a shortage of experienced airline pilots and in drives to reduce costs airline management have kept crewing levels to the lowest possible. Unfortunately this is starting to have an affect with many pilots not reaching retirement age mainly because they are simply worn out and many suffering from organophosphate poisoning. Another hidden issue that has only recently started coming to light. I am certainly considering a career change after 10 years of flying. I have also found my self waking up on a flight deck after a short rest to find the other pilot fast asleep. One thing I will say is that soon there will be an accident caused by this, destroying the excellent safety record we have in UK aviation.
As pilots we work hard, we do get paid well, but no where near the £100,000 level Mr Calder asserts. I do wonder where he gets his figures from though. When I first started flying commercially I earned the grand sum of £14,000 p.a. and even today would dream of £100,000. Could I ask what Mr Calder’s salary would be and whether he feels it should be returned or given to charity in light of the obvious mistakes and conclusion in his piece? His mistakes just annoy people, ours could kill them.
It would be nice to see a response from Mr Calder on this as his assertion that pilot fatigue is not an issue is based on astonishingly incorrect information. I assume this is not normal practice for journalists of the independent?
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In my experience, everyone in every profession thinks they do a great job and resents "external" comment or interference. In my experience, every profession fails, at times, to meet its own high standards. In my experience self-regulation doesn't work and, left to their own devices, professions fail to address shortcomings. With these points in mind, I welcome Mr. Calder's article. The venom and bile poured out on this board is just a dangerous symptom of an arrogant profession, which sees no need to justify itself to its customers.
That is entrirely different from producing nonsense statements based on blatantly wrong figures.
This is not about pilot professionalism, it is about wrongly reported work patterns - the result of simple lazy journalism, and a lie is a lie plain and simple.
PS on re-reading your comments I have to say - what a load of b*ll*x you wrote! For one thing this industry is not 'self-regulated'. What on earth are you waffling about?
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Say Again..have you been reading over my shoulder?
My snotty email, is very similar, I don't however have a copy to share..and snotty describes the tone, rather than the content
My snotty email, is very similar, I don't however have a copy to share..and snotty describes the tone, rather than the content
The 'journalist' in question is a classic example of 'instant journalism' at its worst. He is frequently used by the BBC as 'rent a quote' (round up the usual suspects Louis - John Nichol, Colonel Bob, etc) and seems rather too eager to denigrate all aspects of Commercial aviation other than his beloved low-cost operators. Ignore the man - he won't go away but he is as insignificant as he looks !
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Arrived in my inbox 
Dear XXXX,
Thank you for your e-mail about my column on pilots’ working conditions last Saturday. I have received other similar responses, and I have used a representative selection of these in the Open Jaw section of The Independent Traveller to be published on Saturday, 7 July (page 19), in a manner which protects pilots’ anonymity. I have also referred readers to the PPRuNe website if they wish to read more on the subject.
Given the strength of feeling about fatgue, I hope to return to the subject soon.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Calder
Thank you for your e-mail about my column on pilots’ working conditions last Saturday. I have received other similar responses, and I have used a representative selection of these in the Open Jaw section of The Independent Traveller to be published on Saturday, 7 July (page 19), in a manner which protects pilots’ anonymity. I have also referred readers to the PPRuNe website if they wish to read more on the subject.
Given the strength of feeling about fatgue, I hope to return to the subject soon.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Calder
Forget house doctors ,how about GPs,NO weekends NO nights days off during week,top up their vast pay with peddling prescriptions(back handers you see) and are accountable to noone when they cock up! Comfy indeed.
For those crews that are unaware, there is an annual duty hour limit for pilots/cabin crew, it's 2000 hours per annum as per the working time directive.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2004/20040756.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2004/20040756.htm
Está servira para distraerle.
Just about all that has been achieved here is a probable increase in the circulation of the The Independent tomorrow. Perhaps it is to be hoped that this is indeed the sum total of the achievement.
Mr Calder is a journalist of some experience and renown. He is possibly more articulate than many who have corresponded with him. He will most certainly have been quite selective and editorial in choosing those letters from pilots, or others, to which he wishes to devote newspaper space tomorrow. He is in a position to direct this farrago of an Open Jaw in any way his inclinations or bias may dictate. Fiction writers of prose, whether indifferent or excellent, are in a position of great power when provided in advance with the ammunition of their interlocutors. It behoves those who write to them to assume that what they have put to paper will be snipped, censored and sarcasmatized. It follows logically that any journalist involved in such discussions as are underway in this forum can access these pages and may feel quite free to quote from anything he reads here. Such quotations might well appear entirely out of context.
It really would be of no consequence were we, as pilots, to be portrayed as overpaid and under worked; let the public think as it will, it is of neither matter nor import. It would be however, an entirely different matter were an honourable profession subjected to ridicule, and that situation brought about because more were eager to open their mouths than to keep them silenced.
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So we should all shut up and let poor journalism and incorrect facts become acceptable?
No chance. If I see something wrong, I'll point it out. That's probably what makes me so popular with my employers!!
No chance. If I see something wrong, I'll point it out. That's probably what makes me so popular with my employers!!
>> Just about all that has been achieved here is a probable increase in the circulation of the The Independent tomorrow. <<
Don't waste your hard earned dosh on Saturday's Tree Hugger Daily. http://www.independent.co.uk/
Don't waste your hard earned dosh on Saturday's Tree Hugger Daily. http://www.independent.co.uk/
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Danny, S.Calder should know better. He did a TV slota year or two ago when he flew with EZY on a typical day so his comments now are purely designed to wind up the pilot community. I suppose in that he has succeeded.
I wrote,
"If all he can do is simple long division, then make him your finance correspondent."
If he includes that in his article, all well and good.
It seems say again slowly did write him a reasoned and reasonable letter but will it make a difference? I suspect not. The airline industry is becoming increasingly the black sheep of Industry UK as a polluting, non-green industry. If we allow S.Calder and his ilk to write rubbish without any comeback or criticism from us then I am off, to plant trees. We've had it!
I wrote,
"If all he can do is simple long division, then make him your finance correspondent."
If he includes that in his article, all well and good.
It seems say again slowly did write him a reasoned and reasonable letter but will it make a difference? I suspect not. The airline industry is becoming increasingly the black sheep of Industry UK as a polluting, non-green industry. If we allow S.Calder and his ilk to write rubbish without any comeback or criticism from us then I am off, to plant trees. We've had it!
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Danny
You have mentioned this before. The recent thread on Ryanair pushing back without a proper headcount is a perfect example of the misinterpreted BS that appears on here regularly You spoke once of a forum only for verified Aviation professionals or a rating system. When is it going to happen. The signal to noise ratio is getting to high in here, despite the best efforts of Rainboe!
I, for one, am becoming increasingly despondent with the level of debate and content from contributors to this forum. There are far too many posters whose only qualification with regards to being a professional pilot is the fact that they can read the name of the forum. The time is rapidly approaching when the pretenders and those wannabes who are unable to make the grade will be forced off this forum and into Jet Blast where their comments will enjoy a wider audience and more appropriate reaction.
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Ah, but Rubik, you have fired off before thinking it through, which is my reason for complaining so loudly. I apologise if you were somewhat put out by my insinuation that you were not an airline pilot but I was generalising because so many posters are obviously not airline pilots even though they offer their views so freely on this forum. All it takes is for Mr Calder to take any comments he reads here, apply the assumption that they must all be from airline pilots because it is PPRuNe and then, as Cavorting Cheetah points out, take them out of context to make whatever point he wishes to make.
Simon Calder is a 'travel writer'. That somehow infers on him the right to write articles that involve transportation as invariably, that is used when travelling. Because we operate aircraft, Mr Calder then has the ability to put his point of view to anyone who cares to read his prose and whether that point of view is accurate or not is irrelevant, simply because it is written for entertainment purposes only. If he chooses to expound the false belief that we are overpaid, underworked prima-donnas and compares us to the overworked, underpaid heroes of the medical profession then so be it.
However, please remember that you would be much better off and would help your cause much better if you were to think through your responses to Mr Calder before committing them to paper. A polite explanation of where he has made wrong assumptions and inviting him to have a full and better explanation would go much further to correcting any wrongdoing.
Simon Calder is a 'travel writer'. That somehow infers on him the right to write articles that involve transportation as invariably, that is used when travelling. Because we operate aircraft, Mr Calder then has the ability to put his point of view to anyone who cares to read his prose and whether that point of view is accurate or not is irrelevant, simply because it is written for entertainment purposes only. If he chooses to expound the false belief that we are overpaid, underworked prima-donnas and compares us to the overworked, underpaid heroes of the medical profession then so be it.
However, please remember that you would be much better off and would help your cause much better if you were to think through your responses to Mr Calder before committing them to paper. A polite explanation of where he has made wrong assumptions and inviting him to have a full and better explanation would go much further to correcting any wrongdoing.