Airline pilots 'buckling under unacceptable pressures'?
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when airlines put "pilots" in the cockpit of sophisticated aircraft with minimal time and expect them to handle the associated pressures I think its entirely predictable that more of them will buckle and crack up than experienced pilots.
its just so obvious.
500 hrs total time and your flying a 320.
right.
its just so obvious.
500 hrs total time and your flying a 320.
right.
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The mob I work for hire MPL cadets now with 75 hours of actual flight time.
When the weather is crap you are on your own.
When the machine misbehaves, you are on your own.
When you divert, you are on your own.
When passengers start kicking off, you are on your own.
When you go around, you are on your own.
Etc
Etc
All this with aggressive management, regular 4 sector days and 12 hour plus duties, month in month out, year in year out.
Little wonder people are breaking.
But, the safety and well being of our passengers and crew is our number priority. ( so long as it does not get in the way of profits and obscene bonuses).
When the weather is crap you are on your own.
When the machine misbehaves, you are on your own.
When you divert, you are on your own.
When passengers start kicking off, you are on your own.
When you go around, you are on your own.
Etc
Etc
All this with aggressive management, regular 4 sector days and 12 hour plus duties, month in month out, year in year out.
Little wonder people are breaking.
But, the safety and well being of our passengers and crew is our number priority. ( so long as it does not get in the way of profits and obscene bonuses).
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The previous posts once again raise what is to me a critical issue. MPL cadets leave can leave the captain on their own in many circumstances. It might be weather, pax problems, QRH issues, fuel planning etc. etc. Scenarios that did not fit into the rapid TQ course and have not been seen before; even for the captain. The cadets have been drilled to 'advocate their position'. That's OK if you have an opinion based on experience. Often that is not the case.
The captain has to manage on their own and make judgements and expect back-up. Now you have, in the current climate of LOCo's, a 3000hr captain. With a 500 hr F/O they are REALLY on their own. No ground back up to make decisions. No experience to fall back on. I question whether the old adage of 5000hrs command threshold should be reintroduced considering the plethora of cadets now in RHS. IMHO the total experience in many flight decks is too little.
The captain has to manage on their own and make judgements and expect back-up. Now you have, in the current climate of LOCo's, a 3000hr captain. With a 500 hr F/O they are REALLY on their own. No ground back up to make decisions. No experience to fall back on. I question whether the old adage of 5000hrs command threshold should be reintroduced considering the plethora of cadets now in RHS. IMHO the total experience in many flight decks is too little.
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I have flown with a good number of MPL pilots, yes they lack experience, but you can't train that anyway!! the vast majority know the SOP's inside out and we certainly invest a huge amount of time both in the sim and then extended line training to produce a good product.
I'm not sure that the mantra of 'they've never been alone" is valid, as i say it all depends on the training and how much better is someone who has spent 2 years flying trail lessons in a C152 ? from a CRM point of view? marginally worse in my experience
I'm not sure that the mantra of 'they've never been alone" is valid, as i say it all depends on the training and how much better is someone who has spent 2 years flying trail lessons in a C152 ? from a CRM point of view? marginally worse in my experience
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we should not accept young inexperienced kids in a cockpit.
If americans do not allow kids in a liner (737/320), there are certainly good reasons.
one day we will follow americans on this point and it will be a good decision. It is all about common sense and logic. There is no discussion about it.
Before being in a liner, the kids should fly thousands hours in a Cessna, doing crosscounties trip, fly turboprop, get responsabilities, prepare their own flights, face their own fear, decisions, during solo flights and grow up.
I do not talk only about aviaiton experience but life experience too.
Nowadays we lose this kinds of thing : responsability, logic and common sense.
If americans do not allow kids in a liner (737/320), there are certainly good reasons.
one day we will follow americans on this point and it will be a good decision. It is all about common sense and logic. There is no discussion about it.
Before being in a liner, the kids should fly thousands hours in a Cessna, doing crosscounties trip, fly turboprop, get responsabilities, prepare their own flights, face their own fear, decisions, during solo flights and grow up.
I do not talk only about aviaiton experience but life experience too.
Nowadays we lose this kinds of thing : responsability, logic and common sense.
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What nonsense that is. The military are quite happy to put a 25 year old I. COMMAND of wide body transports and single seat fast jets without spending pointless hours on a C152.
Please remind me whether the safety record is better 'nowadays' ( as you put it) or 'back in the day' when one had to earn the right to be in a 'liner'. Your post is simply ridiculous and outdated. Quite how ten thousand hours in a Cessna better prepared you for a first officer position on a 737 is beyond me.
Fwiw, BA has been successfully putting kids (if you can call a 24 year old a kid) in the Rhs of its jets since the 70's.
Please remind me whether the safety record is better 'nowadays' ( as you put it) or 'back in the day' when one had to earn the right to be in a 'liner'. Your post is simply ridiculous and outdated. Quite how ten thousand hours in a Cessna better prepared you for a first officer position on a 737 is beyond me.
Fwiw, BA has been successfully putting kids (if you can call a 24 year old a kid) in the Rhs of its jets since the 70's.
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What nonsense that is. The military are quite happy to put a 25 year old I. COMMAND of wide body transports and single seat fast jets without spending pointless hours on a C152.
Please remind me whether the safety record is better 'nowadays' ( as you put it) or 'back in the day' when one had to earn the right to be in a 'liner'. Your post is simply ridiculous and outdated. Quite how ten thousand hours in a Cessna better prepared you for a first officer position on a 737 is beyond me.
Fwiw, BA has been successfully putting kids (if you can call a 24 year old a kid) in the Rhs of its jets since the 70's.
Please remind me whether the safety record is better 'nowadays' ( as you put it) or 'back in the day' when one had to earn the right to be in a 'liner'. Your post is simply ridiculous and outdated. Quite how ten thousand hours in a Cessna better prepared you for a first officer position on a 737 is beyond me.
Fwiw, BA has been successfully putting kids (if you can call a 24 year old a kid) in the Rhs of its jets since the 70's.
About safety, yeah, fortunately we have automation for compensation. I would certainly not say that pilots level is better than years ago, especially with less and less hours. For the record, years ago, you needed 700h to get a simple CPL(A).
As you should have noticed, when automation is suddenly lost (cf AF 447 or asiana airline to say the least), nobody is there to fly the plane then.
Now if you feel satisfied to put kids in a cockpit, ok, it is your opinion, but do not tell that safety record is better because pilots are better. No it's better because nowadays we do have "smart" plane as long as you set up FMGS correctly. But it is not a good reason IMHO, to cut hours of flight training and accept anybody in a right seat.
Hi 3greens
3greens - BA/Military and similar provide first class training and ongoing support for highly capable, carefully selected young men and women and I agree with you that it works extremely well, however....
... many airlines are now taking on people who have little interest or background in aviation and who have had their 200 hour ish course paid for by parents etc ..... this is not great, but what is worse, and this is the important bit ..... is that the airlines have also reduced their training drastically.
I joined a very big, widebody only airline many years ago with some 5,000 hours+ of heavy turbo prop and jet time when the simulator and flight training was some 3 times more than a 200 hour cadet gets now ......
Life experience is also missing .... on one of my last trips on the 744 trawling through the night I found myself sitting beside a young man who had a around 250 hours on small general aviation aircraft and had just completed a terrifyingly small number of simulator sessions since leaving the college two months before. I went to the toilet leaving said young man in charge - opened the toilet door and found the toilet in an absolutely disgraceful condition, one which I had never encountered before in an aircraft .... said young man had left it in that condition 20 minutes before !
I was just shocked that I had to have the conversation that followed with the First Officer of a 744 in a major international airline.
Things are different and it's not just the number of flying hours
... many airlines are now taking on people who have little interest or background in aviation and who have had their 200 hour ish course paid for by parents etc ..... this is not great, but what is worse, and this is the important bit ..... is that the airlines have also reduced their training drastically.
I joined a very big, widebody only airline many years ago with some 5,000 hours+ of heavy turbo prop and jet time when the simulator and flight training was some 3 times more than a 200 hour cadet gets now ......
Life experience is also missing .... on one of my last trips on the 744 trawling through the night I found myself sitting beside a young man who had a around 250 hours on small general aviation aircraft and had just completed a terrifyingly small number of simulator sessions since leaving the college two months before. I went to the toilet leaving said young man in charge - opened the toilet door and found the toilet in an absolutely disgraceful condition, one which I had never encountered before in an aircraft .... said young man had left it in that condition 20 minutes before !
I was just shocked that I had to have the conversation that followed with the First Officer of a 744 in a major international airline.
Things are different and it's not just the number of flying hours
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I keep reading about how evil "management" is and how they are responsible for the many ills related to the pressures on pilots. Where are the pilot unions in all of this? What is their role and why are they not addressing any of these "obvious" problems?
Could this be classic example of "We have met the enemy, and they is us."
Could this be classic example of "We have met the enemy, and they is us."
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we should not accept young inexperienced kids in a cockpit.
If americans do not allow kids in a liner (737/320), there are certainly good reasons.
one day we will follow americans on this point and it will be a good decision. It is all about common sense and logic. There is no discussion about it.
Before being in a liner, the kids should fly thousands hours in a Cessna, doing crosscounties trip, fly turboprop, get responsabilities, prepare their own flights, face their own fear, decisions, during solo flights and grow up.
I do not talk only about aviaiton experience but life experience too.
Nowadays we lose this kinds of thing : responsability, logic and common sense.
If americans do not allow kids in a liner (737/320), there are certainly good reasons.
one day we will follow americans on this point and it will be a good decision. It is all about common sense and logic. There is no discussion about it.
Before being in a liner, the kids should fly thousands hours in a Cessna, doing crosscounties trip, fly turboprop, get responsabilities, prepare their own flights, face their own fear, decisions, during solo flights and grow up.
I do not talk only about aviaiton experience but life experience too.
Nowadays we lose this kinds of thing : responsability, logic and common sense.
For what it's worth I had 160 hours total when I first started flying heavy jets. I didn't buckle under pressure, I was able to back up the captain and deal with most things thrown at me and I haven't crashed anything, ever. As in all walks of life there are some that can and some that can't. 1500 hours in bug smashers will not change that.
Oh and to all the dear little pilots buckling under pressure, don't say we didn't warn you. MTFU wet pants, you made your bed.....
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I keep reading about how evil "management" is and how they are responsible for the many ills related to the pressures on pilots. Where are the pilot unions in all of this? What is their role and why are they not addressing any of these "obvious" problems?
Another one is that the EU for example has allowed companies to build cross-border entities while unions at the same time do not allow the same cross-border freedom. Reason is that most of social and working law is still not unified and a thing for each single state, not the EU. However, even though that does make it more difficult pilots in different carriers do react differently to that. Some never unionised and i doubt it will happen anytime soon (FR), others are unionised despite their cross-border structure (easyjet).
Anyway, a union council can only negotiate from a position of power if their colleagues stand united. If pilots do not join the relevant union, don't care about CLAs and fly during industrial actions (which is sometimes unavoidable in the EU), there is no surprise if things go downhill. No employer will better T&Cs if a union turns up saying "pretty please", you have to force them.
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+1 to that, Denti. Any pilot choosing not to join a union these days (I know some don't have the choice) is off his head. Only collective negotiation can resist these pressures.
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Well in the UK, we don't have a "Union".
It's an association and has less teeth than an 80 year old life time coca cola drinking and no stomach for a battle.
If your thinking Union, you need to think RMT.
Anything else and you may as well tear up your 1% and throw it to the wind if your outside maybe 3 major major airlines in the UK.
When was the last UK pilot strike?
It's an association and has less teeth than an 80 year old life time coca cola drinking and no stomach for a battle.
If your thinking Union, you need to think RMT.
Anything else and you may as well tear up your 1% and throw it to the wind if your outside maybe 3 major major airlines in the UK.
When was the last UK pilot strike?
Yep, but look at the monopoly the RMT enjoy, and compare/contrast with that enjoyed by the "Association" you refer to. The RMT can take out the whole of London underground, which gives Boris and others major problems ...BALPA can perhaps influence BA's flights in and out of London which leaves ...well quite a lot of options really for those who want to fly out of LGW/LHR......so the politicos aren't interested.
Frankly I'll credit BALPA with doing as well as they do, because the IR landscape in the UK is well and truly tilted against any union or association (?BMA) that hasn't got a monopoly on supply of services
Frankly I'll credit BALPA with doing as well as they do, because the IR landscape in the UK is well and truly tilted against any union or association (?BMA) that hasn't got a monopoly on supply of services
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Wiggy, what about the easa FTL changes? They could have grounded the whole unionised workforce. Now that's what I'm talking about!
Even on a company standpoint, they just don't have the balls. They are a talking shop and the management know it.
Even on a company standpoint, they just don't have the balls. They are a talking shop and the management know it.
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Dunno if that is covered by law in the UK to strike against something like FTL. Over here in germany that would be a political strike and those are not allowed. There were however a few EU wide action days, where sadly the workforce didn't show up to show their disapproval. Once again, unions (associations apparently in the UK) are only as strong as the workforce they represent. If the workforce can't be bothered to show up nothing is gonna happen...
Deep and Fast
I'd have to look harder at FTLs but as Denti has said I'm not sure a strike against such would have been allowed, it was a political issue...and there's the problem, post Thatcher the Associations/Unions have been well and truly emasculated when it comes to IA, and when it comes to anything crossing EO boundaries, such as Open Skies, it's got worse.
It stinks, but short of a revolution.
I'd have to look harder at FTLs but as Denti has said I'm not sure a strike against such would have been allowed, it was a political issue...and there's the problem, post Thatcher the Associations/Unions have been well and truly emasculated when it comes to IA, and when it comes to anything crossing EO boundaries, such as Open Skies, it's got worse.
It stinks, but short of a revolution.
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Other unions seem to be able to call their members out. You need a union that is prepared to go all the way. Maybe after the open skies thing, they lost their bottle.
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I recall a quote from my Flight Time Limitations agreement with a former employer which stated: "For the avoidance of fatigue, rest periods of 18 to 30 hours should be avoided."
I was constantly scheduled into the above rest period where, ultimately, the cumulative effect was extreme fatigue. The Crew Scheduling Department's reply to my queries about the legality of these constant incursions was... "It couldn't be avoided!" The play on words such as "should" didn't mean anything to the crew schedulers. Having then visited my Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) to seek advice upon my fitness for flying duty he concurred that I was unfit for duty and he grounded me for a period of two weeks to recuperate. Having then reported to Flight Ops with my "Grounding Letter" the company insisted that a "Second Opinion" was being sought and that I had to report to the Senior Medical Officer of the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department. I duly reported to the Senior Medical Officer, where he concurred my unfitness for duty and grounded me for 6 MONTHS! Upon my return to flying duty I enjoyed a short respite from being scheduled into 18 to 30 hour rest periods. However, and despite my giving fair warning to crew scheduling that I would resign if this practice were to continue, this malpractice started all over again and... true to my word; I resigned!
The Pilots Association that I belonged to didn't adequately address this particular issue because they were of the opinion that they would lose any legal bun-fight with the company, i.e. the pilots association had agreed to the flight time limitations document.
Banging my head against the wall with the Flight Management Team only made things worse because I was then considered to be a "troublemaker"!
The extreme fatigue that I endured was, indeed, a most debilitating experience and that my personality changed dramatically... for the worse! The sad part of all of this mess was that many of my colleagues, except for those who were close friends, didn't recognise that I was suffering from extreme exhaustion.
I no longer have a valid medical certificate. Not because of fatigue issues, but because of Macular Degeneration of my right eye. The cause of which can be due to stress, i.e. high blood pressure, which causes the separation of the macular.
In conclusion, if aviators are to get a better deal and limit the amount of stress within their lives then they must look inwards and support their colleagues when things start going badly wrong.
I was constantly scheduled into the above rest period where, ultimately, the cumulative effect was extreme fatigue. The Crew Scheduling Department's reply to my queries about the legality of these constant incursions was... "It couldn't be avoided!" The play on words such as "should" didn't mean anything to the crew schedulers. Having then visited my Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) to seek advice upon my fitness for flying duty he concurred that I was unfit for duty and he grounded me for a period of two weeks to recuperate. Having then reported to Flight Ops with my "Grounding Letter" the company insisted that a "Second Opinion" was being sought and that I had to report to the Senior Medical Officer of the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department. I duly reported to the Senior Medical Officer, where he concurred my unfitness for duty and grounded me for 6 MONTHS! Upon my return to flying duty I enjoyed a short respite from being scheduled into 18 to 30 hour rest periods. However, and despite my giving fair warning to crew scheduling that I would resign if this practice were to continue, this malpractice started all over again and... true to my word; I resigned!
The Pilots Association that I belonged to didn't adequately address this particular issue because they were of the opinion that they would lose any legal bun-fight with the company, i.e. the pilots association had agreed to the flight time limitations document.
Banging my head against the wall with the Flight Management Team only made things worse because I was then considered to be a "troublemaker"!
The extreme fatigue that I endured was, indeed, a most debilitating experience and that my personality changed dramatically... for the worse! The sad part of all of this mess was that many of my colleagues, except for those who were close friends, didn't recognise that I was suffering from extreme exhaustion.
I no longer have a valid medical certificate. Not because of fatigue issues, but because of Macular Degeneration of my right eye. The cause of which can be due to stress, i.e. high blood pressure, which causes the separation of the macular.
In conclusion, if aviators are to get a better deal and limit the amount of stress within their lives then they must look inwards and support their colleagues when things start going badly wrong.
If you want to give yourself a fright, Google "do I have PTSD?", take one or two online tests and even without a single traumatic event or experiencing the horrors of war, chances are you have many of the symptoms of PTSD. This gig is very harmful to our mental health.