Article by Simon Calder of the Independent

[SLFguy]

Not quite sure what you guys are so wound up about...

People in the aviation industry KNOW the article is wrong.

99.9% of people outside the industry......er,... don't care.

Seriously I have never, ever, ever overheard a conversation in a pub, bar, bus, train or plane which involved Joe Public discoursing on the Terms & Conditions of pilots. Never - not once - honestly...never.

Nobody is NOT going to pax as a result of this article.

[pilotmike]

The signal to noise ratio is getting to high in here

Telstar, being a satellite which transmits signals, you of all people (equipment?) should know that a high S/N ratio is to be strived for. It is places with a low S/N ratio which should be avoided.

In you efforts to broadcast a stronger signal, little did you realise that you were adding to the noise!

PM

[fireflybob]

Seriously I have never, ever, ever overheard a conversation in a pub, bar, bus, train or plane which involved Joe Public discoursing on the Terms & Conditions of pilots. Never - not once - honestly...never.

SLFGuy, that may well be true but when I meet socially and I acquaint people with the amount I am earning as a pilot they are always quite astonished - they all seem to think we are earning £100k per year!

[SLFguy]

"SLFGuy, that may well be true but when I meet socially and I acquaint people with the amount I am earning as a pilot they are always quite astonished - they all seem to think we are earning £100k per year!"

One suggests you move in better circles. Discussion of salaries is vulgar.

Oh I've just noticed..YOU acquaint them...why on earth would you do that..

[fireflybob]

Because they often make comments like "It's ok for you earning £100k per year blah-blah". I then feel obliged to acquaint them of the facts!

Why should discussion of salary be vulgar? Sounds like a very British attitude to money to me!

I am quite happy with all the "circles" I mix in - perhaps you need to get out more?

[SLFguy]

Woah Bob!...who p*ssed in your pot plant this morning?
We obviously come from different areas and backgrounds so fair enough. It's just I would never dream of talking salaries in a social context.
Anyway my reply was only semi-serious but I hardly think it's vital/imperative that this great wrongdoing, nay this spiteful and damaging misrepresentation, of pilot's salaries be redressed..like I say I doubt if anyone outside of the industry really cares.

[MrBunker]

Danny,
Ref your request to write to Simon in a polite manner. I've just done so and, I hope, corrected some of his misunderstandings from my hotel room in YVR, before back to back with the sim and NRT. Shouldn't be too fatiguing then!
We do ourselves no favours if we launch at a man like Simon who, let's not forget, has a public platform with reach far in excess of Pprune, as he can easily cherry-pick our indignation and make us out to be even more the prima donnas that he suspects us to be.
Let's try and keep our dignity intact.
Best Regards

Edited to say - just had a very gracious reply from Simon. I maintain that we will not cover ourselves in glory by rushing to attack. Enlightenment and explanation are the way ahead.

[ShotOne]

It is important to correct drivel like this -but not here on pprune and not with a rant. If you've posted here, how about writing to the Independent getting their facts straight

[phillipas]

The 'open jaw' bit with excerpts from some of the comments received by The Independent:

http://travel.independent.co.uk/news...cle2740932.ece

And Simon Calder mentions the responses, briefely, in his 'The Man Who Pays His Way' column:

http://classified.independent.co.uk/...cle2740940.ece

[Bealzebub]

You know the drill, and its inevitable futility. Much of the safety briefing before every flight defines the word "pointless". If you have travelled in a car some time in the past 30 years, the chances are you may already know how to fasten and unfasten a seatbelt

Yes Mr Calder but the seatbelt in your car and the one on the aircraft fasten and unfasten in entirely different positions. In situations of high stress the normal panic response is to resort to the procedure you are naturally familiar with. Guess which one that is ? The best remedy to this is to submit the individuals short term memory to a briefing that re-emphasises the point prior to take off. For those that actually listen and watch (rather than assume it is all "pointless" in their own case ) they have actually increased their own chances of survival should these procedures be called upon. In evacuation situations time is critical and fumbling for a seat belt catch that is not on the side of your seat is to reduce your survival chances, be warned !

You, like me, may wonder exactly how many airline passengers' lives have been saved over the decades by the inflatable lifejackets that the long-suffering cabin crew are obliged to model in the aisles. The most ridiculous bit of the safety briefing is right at the end: "... and here's a whistle to attract attention". If you survive the aircraft's plunge into the icy ocean, remember to secure the life jacket with a double bow and inflate it only after you leave the aircraft (and, ladies, remove high heels). This scenario suggests you will be greeted by a rescue party bobbing around, patiently waiting to serve up beef tea and ship's biscuits as soon as they've plucked you from the Atlantic after hearing the whistle's shrill call.

No, the scenario is much more likely within a few meters or kilometers of an airport runway. Many airports are near the coast and many runways have overrun areas that terminate into water. It would be the height of stupidity to get into a pleasure boat in a calm harbour without a lifejacket on, and that is after the necessary time that may be allowed to work out how the jacket is fitted, operated and tied. In the event of an aircraft ditching in the more likely circumstances described, only attention to the pre flight safety briefing is likely to have been of any use to you. Again the refreshement to the important short term memory is going to be vital to your chances of survival when the human mind has to go into "panic/survival" mode.

Following a BBC investigation this week into pilot fatigue, an extra line must surely be added to the safety briefing: "Do not use the whistle on board, in case you wake the pilots."

In a survey of 534 members of the British Air Line Pilots' Association (Balpa), four out of five said they had suffered from chronic fatigue, with three in four reporting that tiredness had adversely affected their response times.
"I have fallen asleep unintentionally in the air where you close your eyes for a second and realise that 10 minutes have passed," one anonymous pilot told the BBC. That sort of trick could usefully be passed on to passengers, but is disconcerting when practised by pilots.

Like the 40,000 other passengers who fly to, from or within Britain on the average day, I expect both the pilots on my plane, and those in command of other aircraft, to be fully in control. One reason flying has an unmatched safety record is the way that "human factors" in crashes have been designed out – but if both pilots doze off then anything could happen. The most worrying incident was where a first officer fell asleep as the captain was "resting". Their aircraft (belonging, we are told, to a low-cost, short-haul airline, but not which one) began to turn into the path of another plane, until they were woken up by air traffic control – now there's a high-class alarm call. More alarmingly, the incident was never officially reported. Automatic pilot was not invented so that the men and women on the flight deck could sleep their way across Europe.

I absolutely agree with you. I expect both pilots to be fully awake and in control. In my last 27 years of airline flying that has certainly been my personal experience of what actually happens. Although you say aviations unmatched safety record is partly as a result of "human factors" in crashes being designed out, that is not strictly true. Awareness and constant re-briefing (that word again !) of human factors has been a major promotion in airline crews training and refresher training over the last 10 years or so. However automation in aircraft systems and the interaction with human performance has evolved a new set of challenges and problems. This then leads on to the issue of boredom, tiredness and fatigue.

When a pilot reports for duty, he or she is assumed to be in full control of their faculties. If they are not, then it is their sole responsibility to declare themselves unfit to work. Airlines uniformly say that they would take no action against any pilot saying that they were too tired to work. According to the Balpa survey, one in three said that they would refuse to fly but would fear disciplinary action. A further one in eight said that they would not declare their fatigue out of fear for their job. They say that they are obliged to be more productive than ever, flying up to six sectors a day.

This is certainly true in intention if not always in practice. Few of us in any walk of life are the best judges of our own projected fitness in 6 hours, 10 hours, 15 hours time. Most of the time and after being adequately rested we can operate perfectly well within the requirements of our duties. The problem with all of us is that we tend to be reluctant to accept any perception of "weakness", "unreliability", or "adaptability" in ourselves as human beings.

Airlines certainly do say that they would take no action against pilots who are too tired to work, and to a large extent that is probably the case. However those same airlines operate to ever tightening margins on crewing levels and would be cancelling a noticeable number of their flights were it not for the levels of compromise that currently exist. In fact what most if not all airlines tell their pilots is that they should not report for duty unless they are fit to do so. Pilots having difficulty in achieveing pre-flight rest will be given the opportunity to consult with an aeromedical professional. That may sound inoccuous but since tiredness and fatigue are usually cured by subsequent rest such an "opportunity" would be fairly redundant in most cases. Again it implies that being tired for work is a "weakness" or "illness" or "shortcoming" that either warrants medical attention or the threat of it. In fact most tiredness is borne out of round the clock reporting duties, rapid time zone changes, uncomfortable and changeable hotel rest facilities, varying standards of food hygine, environmental noise interrupting rest times, etc. etc.

In fact most pilots will simply (in extremis) phone in sick as the procedure for this requires little explanation or justification, and the systems are set up to deal with this. However many pilots (particularly in the lower cost carriers) draw a significant and sometimes major part of their monthly salary from the time they actually fly. There is therefore a subliminal and perhaps obvious pressure to operate when they might not otherwise do so.

A junior house doctor at the end of a 19-hour-shift, who works in an industry that also deals in matters of life and death, will look enviously at the limit on pilots' hours, which permits only 900 duty hours a year – corresponding to less than two-and-a-half hours a day.
Now, most people work around 200 days annually (except those of us with the absurd good fortune to be on holiday 365 days a year – 366 next year – and who wouldn't know chronic fatigue if we tripped over it in a darkened youth hostel dorm). So the pilots' average rises to four-and-a-half hours a day. That is the time actually on the flight deck.

You will have received no shortage of comments on this paragraph, and obviously your figures ( perhaps unintentionally) are rather disingenous. 900 hours a year is the time limit for actually operating the aircraft from the time it pushes back off its stand to the time it arrrives and the engines are shut down. It doesn't include the 60-90 min period for checking in, flight planning, ordering the fuel, getting through security and out to the aircraft. Then completeing the pre-flight walk around, on board inspections and setting up the flight deck. Checking the loadsheets and cargo paperwork to ensure the numbers all match up and the aircraft is safely and properly loaded. Then working out the performance calculations and carrying out those all important pre-flight safety briefings that we as crew do before every sector we fly.

Your times do not allow for the 60 minutes or so it takes to do all of this again at our destination for the return trip. It does not allow for the completion checks at the end of a flight which will add at least 30 minutes ( and often more) to the duty period. In fact the average duty day which does not provide for any lunch or tea breaks is an average of 10 hours a day. The flying duty day can be up to 14 hours in the UK and with the use of the commanders discretion can be 2 to 3 hours more up to 16 hours+. Oh yes and even after this the duty ( but not the flying duty) can and often is extended to postion the crew by road or by air to another airport to start their next duty. There is no limit on how long a duty day can be, indeed in some circumstances it can exceed 24 hours ! I bet your junior doctor would not be quite so envious now ? In reality you can roughly double the number of flying hours a pilot does to achieve their actual duty hours. That is around 1800 hours a year. Now divide that by your 200 working days a year and suddenly you average 9 hours a day. Many duty periods run for 6 consecutive days that works out at 54 hours a week. Well above 37 hours to 40 hours the average worker would expect. Then of course there are the numerous duties involving training and refresher training that adds to the workload. Don't forget of course that for the vast majority of pilots these heavy workloads will run around the clock from day to day, sometiems advancing forwards and sometimes retreating. All of this is very tiring and will eventually catch up with even the youngest and fittest of individuals.

Short-haul flying around the most congested skies in the world, over north-west Europe, is as stressful as aviation gets. Yet the rewards are commensurat, with salaries averaging £100,000 a year (or £110 for each hour actually flying) and plenty of days off. A couple of pilots of my acquaintance manage to run successful businesses in their spare time.

I am not sure this is actually as stressful as aviation gets. There are many many parts of the world where the skies are even busier, such as North America. Flying in areas of poor weather and inadequate communications can be more stressful, however that is a fairly moot point. My salary comfortably fits in with your assumption, but after 27 unbroken years of career progression on old style, well paid, final salary pensioned contracts, that does not in any truthful way represent an indicitive average. I would venture slightly over half that figure might be closer to the mean average.

The survey has certainly highlighted issues of concern – but, frankly, you are far more at risk from the effects of operator fatigue on the motorway on the way to the airport than from the pilots in the cockpit dropping off.
A cynical old passenger might conclude that the main purpose of the pilots' union survey is to reduce crews' workloads. Who pays? We do, in the form of higher fares, paying pilots to spend more time with their golf clubs

I agree you are at more risk on the motorway to the airport and certainly the risk of both pilots "dropping off" is very remote indeed. However the issue of rostering that causes fatigue and tiredness is a serious one because it is perhaps one of the few areas that is not progressive in advancing flight safety. Indeed some currently proposed changes to the working hours directives will actually reverse changes that were introduced years ago following fatigue caused crashes. Automation in aircraft cockpits may have advanced rapidly over the last 25 years, but for the human body and mind, evolution is a much slower process

I do not play golf, nor do I get to many of my childrens parents eveings or school plays. I miss birthdays, sometimes christmas holidays, most weekends and any short term appointments. I am often awake when my family are asleep and vice versa. I am sometimes away from home for days or weeks at a time. I am not attempting to court sympathy, simply stating the reality. This is the lifestyle that I accepted when I embarked on this career, and it has its rewards that to some extent compensates for those factors. It is the workload that I and my colleagues in this industry apply that help to keep your fares as low as they are. However that doesn't mean that your ever lower fares should be at the price of your safety, or mine. I am sure you will remind your "cynical old passenger" of that fact.

Your article raises a number of interesting points, and to some extent it may well be representitive of the views of most lay people who naturally know little of the realities of the working conditions that are becoming more and more the industry norm. Cutting costs to preserve margins is part of every business and is critical to the survival of many in a fiercely competive industry. However it takes a serious accident ( valuejet ?) for the wider public to sit up and say "enough"! Even then such occurences are rare and soon leave the publics short term memory. Perhaps that is why these surveys and reports seek to remind the public of the importance of these issues. Perhaps (like the safety briefings) the wiser public will actually listen rather than consign it to the envelope of "futility" and "pointless".

[Banzai Eagle]

Beazle
"A couple of pilots of my acquaintance manage to run successful businesses in their spare time".

You may be the exception to the rule. The future for Pilots is part time jobs on full time pay, many are at that stage already. A pilot recently resigned from my airline for lifestyle issues and more time off with his family. The previous year he had 136 days off, 42 days leave of which 4 weeks was at the peak school summer holidays, 21 contactables (days off to the average pilot). That's over half the year off.

Maybe Mr Calder is referring to him, but when you compare that to Junior Docters, check in staff etc, you can perhaps see why Mr Calder may have got the wrong end of the stick?.

[Iva harden]

I am sure Mr Calder writes what he wants people to believe as, after all, he is a journo. They are notoriously inaccurate in what they write, very rarely is it fact, it is generally their view point on a story, if it does not get a reaction then it is not worth printing, poetic licence taken to the enth degree in this case. He has damaged his credibility now ( what little he had ) so really he has gone and shot himself in his sandaled foot!! His column has printed pilots comments, so maybe that is to redress the balance. I would not want to be in his open toed sandals over the next few months when he flies as I think he will get an ear full as well as extra special treatment from the Cabin staff !!" More tea Mr Calder"? TEEEE HEEE

[Carnage Matey!]

Very recently the Independent was running radio ads proclaiming that it was a "Viewspaper", not a "Newspaper", which to my mind simply means it's a load of journos giving you their 2p's worth rather than reporting something in an unbiased manner. What a fine example of the ethos Mr Calder is.

[rubik101]

Just to amplify the earlier post by backtrack, for those of you who haven't read the report; the pax who had inflated their life jackets on impact or earlier were unable to escape from the aircraft once it was semi-submerged. They were unable to dive below the surface of the water due to their bouyancy. Those who listened were able to swim down to the open windows/doors and swim clear of the aircraft.
Did anyone buy the paper and read the article mentioned?

[Oblaaspop]

I don't know why everyone is sooooo wound up by this article!
It was after all written in the Independant which has a circulation of about 20 people, 90% of which are sandle wearing left wing teachers who care so much about the environment that they'd never get on an aircraft anyway!
Now if it had been written in the Mail or the Sun, I may be more concerned!

[PAXboy]

According to their website:
The Independent has 1.3 million readers a week
The on-line edition gives 15 million page impressions per month

According to: ABC (Official circulation auditors for UK for all newspapers)
Nov 06:
Circulation: 253,737
Readership: 741,000 – Up 10.3% on same month previous year.
========================

So ... it's not journalists that make wild statements without facts.

[Oblaaspop]

"Circulation: 253,737"

WOW!!!

Ok then 90% of 253,737 are left wing sandle wearing teachers! So who cares? The population of the UK is over 62 million people (the majority of which can neither speak or read English anyway!).

I can't believe anyone is actually losing sleep over this! I think the article is entirely accurate........I for one am only annoyed that our easy life and enormous salaries have been exposed!

I was hoping to keep secret the fact that I earn 100k per week for flying one 20 minute sector every 3 months (with one hostie sat on my lap and another sat on my face) with 25 weeks holiday a year!!!

As I said, if that's what 'Joe Public' actually think we do then bring it on...it makes us look even more like 'Gods'.

None of this is life or job changing, so lets just get over it and move on please, we're making ourselves look stupid!

[Desert Diner]

oops sarong thread

[Danny]

The Independent has 1.3 million readers a week
The on-line edition gives 15 million page impressions per month

Hmmm... PPRuNe has 11-12 million page views per month!

[galleypower]

News Article

A foolish article indeed. Probably just the tip of the iceberg. Too many news articles are written after poor research. If you rellay want to know whats going on you will have to do your own research and then make up your mind. But who has the time?