low cost pilots compared to flag carriers
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From today's 'Times'
Flying into trouble
Are budget airlines cutting too many corners in the name of price competition?
AIR travel involves a complicated interaction of aircraft systems, ground and air personnel, weather and air traffic organisations, little of which is controlled by any individual airline. Its consequent vulnerability to disruption is predictable on a long-term basis — but not hour by hour. We know it will sometimes be foggy in winter, but not exactly where and when.
Airline professionals assume plans will go wrong, and prepare by having “reserves”. Some affecting safety are required by regulation, but most aren’t. To deal with aircraft defects, you need spare aircraft, and air traffic control delays require reserves of crew flying hours. To land in fog requires pilots to be trained, aircraft with special equipment, and airports with extra facilities. Although most of the time these reserves are unused, they still have to be paid for, and account for a significant part of most airlines’ costs, spread over all its passengers.
Many low-cost airlines just ignore potential disruption: then they can minimise costs by not having these reserve facilities. When many predictable problems actually occur, the cost of dealing with them — meals, accommodation, lost time, alternative travel — is simply dumped on the passengers affected. In addition, the absence of reserves always puts additional pressure on everyone involved in making decisions, when flight safety must be balanced against increased costs.
“Full service” airlines are far from perfect, with many inefficiencies that were ignored until “low-cost” carriers started taking away their passengers. But don’t be fooled by low-cost airline claims that their combination of “low fares and high profits” are solely because of their greater efficiency. Some of their profits come from the pockets of an unfortunate minority of their passengers, who are actually bearing a significant part of the airlines’ real costs. But with no collective voice, it just never gets counted. We can only hope that regulation is sufficient to ensure that safety isn’t seriously eroded at their expense too.
Captain Steve Last, Marlow,
Buckinghamshire
A smile costs nothing
STEVE KEENAN (T2, August 14) tars all no-frills airlines with the same brush. I find Michael O’Leary’s comments about customer service at Ryanair appallingly conceited, and insulting to his staff. But I do not believe that they are accepted by at least some other no-frills airlines.
Within this airlines sector, despite the heavy competition, there is a clear distinction between the attitude and position of, say, Go (and perhaps buzz) on the one hand, and on the other, the attitude of easyJet and Ryanair. Go staff, led directly from the top by Barbara Cassani, clearly demonstrate that, for the most part, giving excellent customer service is part of the organisation’s ethos.
It costs nothing to treat people properly, keep them informed, tell them the truth, and be compassionate and understanding. Mr O’Leary would seem to believe that even these matters of common good manners have a cost to them, and somehow are an added extra.
I’d guess that his staff, like most others, are actually pretty good at giving great “customer service” to their family and friends when they are at home or at leisure. It is only when they go to work that they have to adopt an unnatural attitude towards their customers.
Of course, if he actually trains them to be this bad, he could stop doing it and save himself some money.
Paul A. Cooper, Clare, Suffolk
Flying into trouble
Are budget airlines cutting too many corners in the name of price competition?
AIR travel involves a complicated interaction of aircraft systems, ground and air personnel, weather and air traffic organisations, little of which is controlled by any individual airline. Its consequent vulnerability to disruption is predictable on a long-term basis — but not hour by hour. We know it will sometimes be foggy in winter, but not exactly where and when.
Airline professionals assume plans will go wrong, and prepare by having “reserves”. Some affecting safety are required by regulation, but most aren’t. To deal with aircraft defects, you need spare aircraft, and air traffic control delays require reserves of crew flying hours. To land in fog requires pilots to be trained, aircraft with special equipment, and airports with extra facilities. Although most of the time these reserves are unused, they still have to be paid for, and account for a significant part of most airlines’ costs, spread over all its passengers.
Many low-cost airlines just ignore potential disruption: then they can minimise costs by not having these reserve facilities. When many predictable problems actually occur, the cost of dealing with them — meals, accommodation, lost time, alternative travel — is simply dumped on the passengers affected. In addition, the absence of reserves always puts additional pressure on everyone involved in making decisions, when flight safety must be balanced against increased costs.
“Full service” airlines are far from perfect, with many inefficiencies that were ignored until “low-cost” carriers started taking away their passengers. But don’t be fooled by low-cost airline claims that their combination of “low fares and high profits” are solely because of their greater efficiency. Some of their profits come from the pockets of an unfortunate minority of their passengers, who are actually bearing a significant part of the airlines’ real costs. But with no collective voice, it just never gets counted. We can only hope that regulation is sufficient to ensure that safety isn’t seriously eroded at their expense too.
Captain Steve Last, Marlow,
Buckinghamshire
A smile costs nothing
STEVE KEENAN (T2, August 14) tars all no-frills airlines with the same brush. I find Michael O’Leary’s comments about customer service at Ryanair appallingly conceited, and insulting to his staff. But I do not believe that they are accepted by at least some other no-frills airlines.
Within this airlines sector, despite the heavy competition, there is a clear distinction between the attitude and position of, say, Go (and perhaps buzz) on the one hand, and on the other, the attitude of easyJet and Ryanair. Go staff, led directly from the top by Barbara Cassani, clearly demonstrate that, for the most part, giving excellent customer service is part of the organisation’s ethos.
It costs nothing to treat people properly, keep them informed, tell them the truth, and be compassionate and understanding. Mr O’Leary would seem to believe that even these matters of common good manners have a cost to them, and somehow are an added extra.
I’d guess that his staff, like most others, are actually pretty good at giving great “customer service” to their family and friends when they are at home or at leisure. It is only when they go to work that they have to adopt an unnatural attitude towards their customers.
Of course, if he actually trains them to be this bad, he could stop doing it and save himself some money.
Paul A. Cooper, Clare, Suffolk
Just a few question from a colonial. What is the minimum "pay credit " guarantee for a day's flying for various British/Irish airlines? Some airlines here in the US have a 4:15 minimum or maybe a 5:00 average for narrowbody flying. With a 4:15 minimum (on easier days with just two or three fairly short legs), we get the extra if we exceed that by any amount. Many days can be 5:40 or even worth 6:00 plus, especially on the longer range narrow bodies etc.
If your month begins with a 78 hour projection, is this your minimum pay even if the company cancels a couple of legs (or you refuse to accept a plane with an inop APU or no autopilot, maybe manual presurization, requiring some "solo flying") or you are sick for a two-day trip?
Do airline contracts over there have duty rig and trip rig? Ratios of one credit hour per X.XX duty hours or trip hours. One of the exceptions to the need for this is Southwest, which spends very little time sitting at a hub, requiring no rig, which many contracts use, to force the company into being more productive with crews. If they are less productive with us, this means less days off, on average. More days off spent commuting to work.
Or do these questions translate well into the lingo over there?
If your month begins with a 78 hour projection, is this your minimum pay even if the company cancels a couple of legs (or you refuse to accept a plane with an inop APU or no autopilot, maybe manual presurization, requiring some "solo flying") or you are sick for a two-day trip?
Do airline contracts over there have duty rig and trip rig? Ratios of one credit hour per X.XX duty hours or trip hours. One of the exceptions to the need for this is Southwest, which spends very little time sitting at a hub, requiring no rig, which many contracts use, to force the company into being more productive with crews. If they are less productive with us, this means less days off, on average. More days off spent commuting to work.
Or do these questions translate well into the lingo over there?
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>>Or do these questions translate well into the lingo over there?<<
Ignition Override, there may be similar agreements in British Airways but I have not heard of anything similar in other UK airlines. I general you are payed an allowance per duty hour/sector which might be anything from £1.50 in a small company to sector pay of £20 per flight in a budget carrier. If the roster changes you simply get paid for what you actually do.
Is the employment culture in the US more rule based?
Ignition Override, there may be similar agreements in British Airways but I have not heard of anything similar in other UK airlines. I general you are payed an allowance per duty hour/sector which might be anything from £1.50 in a small company to sector pay of £20 per flight in a budget carrier. If the roster changes you simply get paid for what you actually do.
Is the employment culture in the US more rule based?
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I'm working in a small european company which is right now trying to do this low-cost thing (dba, soon to be bought by easyjet).
We get a monthly pay for 67 bh, everything over 67bh is overtime and we get 110% of the basic pay for that (basic salary / 67 * 110 %). The basic pay is based on seniority with an advancement each year. To make it more confusing we get blockhours awarded for some things. We get 3 bhs per vacation day (you start with 39 days/year) and per standby day (one hour notice). For training we get at least 3bh or the actual training time. And we get 25% of the deadhead time. Our Flying block hours are the greater of actual, SWORD- or official flight plan time.
For example i'm planned to fly acutal about 57 block hours this month, but i'll get payed for at least 72 block hours.
Denti
We get a monthly pay for 67 bh, everything over 67bh is overtime and we get 110% of the basic pay for that (basic salary / 67 * 110 %). The basic pay is based on seniority with an advancement each year. To make it more confusing we get blockhours awarded for some things. We get 3 bhs per vacation day (you start with 39 days/year) and per standby day (one hour notice). For training we get at least 3bh or the actual training time. And we get 25% of the deadhead time. Our Flying block hours are the greater of actual, SWORD- or official flight plan time.
For example i'm planned to fly acutal about 57 block hours this month, but i'll get payed for at least 72 block hours.
Denti
Credit hours in BA
Ignition Overide
Without getting into a long description of work allocation in BA, we do have something similar to your system but without the protection of guaranteed pay.
Take my September roster for instance (Capt B777 LHR).
The CAP (Target credit hours) was set at 88 for the month. The line of work I was allocated was not my first choice ( 64th in fact) and although it has 5 trips (SFO CAI EWR PHL MCO) the Credit for the line only totals 78 hours. The 2 East coast trips are low credit. Thus I am 10 hours short. My "hourly rate" at pay point 16 is GBP67 per hour thus BA will remove GBP670 (yes - take from my wages) because I failed to make CAP!
As these trips take up all the month there is no room for extra trips or overtime. Had I acheived a better line with more credit I could have used any surplus to add to my "bank" and thus ameliorated any shortfall in later months......
Without getting into a long description of work allocation in BA, we do have something similar to your system but without the protection of guaranteed pay.
Take my September roster for instance (Capt B777 LHR).
The CAP (Target credit hours) was set at 88 for the month. The line of work I was allocated was not my first choice ( 64th in fact) and although it has 5 trips (SFO CAI EWR PHL MCO) the Credit for the line only totals 78 hours. The 2 East coast trips are low credit. Thus I am 10 hours short. My "hourly rate" at pay point 16 is GBP67 per hour thus BA will remove GBP670 (yes - take from my wages) because I failed to make CAP!
As these trips take up all the month there is no room for extra trips or overtime. Had I acheived a better line with more credit I could have used any surplus to add to my "bank" and thus ameliorated any shortfall in later months......
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Hand Solo et al: fear not - whatever else is true I am most definitely not into Zen Bhudism (is that how you spell it?)!
I also do recognise that whatever life might once have been at BA, it is no longer the case for many. I also accept that the problems between the pilots at the cabin crew are pretty serious at BA - a situation not helped by the pilots being week by the weakness of the pilot managers there. In my company we are extremely fortunate that we seem to have a great rapor between pilots and cabin crew in that we both recognise the hassles that the other has. I am sure that there are occasional difficulties but in the year that I have been there, I have yet to see any strop between the Flight Deck and Cabin Crew. The situation of pursers thinking they are second in command of the aircraft just does not arise, but nor does any suggestion that cabin crew are just 'trolley dolleys' either. Finally there is no doubt in my mind that BA guys are working extremely hard in a depressing situation.
My original point still stands however. We are only worth what we can persuade our employers to pay us. The constant striving to be the top of the payment tree can only lead to disappointment. Maybe I lack ambition, but the bottom line is that I have chosen to accept my lot and I feel better for it. I cannot help but feeling that a lot of you excellent people are heading for some serious stress as you struggle through the coming months. But best of luck anyway.
I also do recognise that whatever life might once have been at BA, it is no longer the case for many. I also accept that the problems between the pilots at the cabin crew are pretty serious at BA - a situation not helped by the pilots being week by the weakness of the pilot managers there. In my company we are extremely fortunate that we seem to have a great rapor between pilots and cabin crew in that we both recognise the hassles that the other has. I am sure that there are occasional difficulties but in the year that I have been there, I have yet to see any strop between the Flight Deck and Cabin Crew. The situation of pursers thinking they are second in command of the aircraft just does not arise, but nor does any suggestion that cabin crew are just 'trolley dolleys' either. Finally there is no doubt in my mind that BA guys are working extremely hard in a depressing situation.
My original point still stands however. We are only worth what we can persuade our employers to pay us. The constant striving to be the top of the payment tree can only lead to disappointment. Maybe I lack ambition, but the bottom line is that I have chosen to accept my lot and I feel better for it. I cannot help but feeling that a lot of you excellent people are heading for some serious stress as you struggle through the coming months. But best of luck anyway.
