Virgin Atlantic pilots consider strike over fatigue
How come some office worker, who works maximum 8 hr days (or there is trouble), was able to make the law that it's alright for flight crew to work an 18 hr day............When you're done, drag your bags down the road to a cheap hotel and make sure you're back here in 17hrs to do it all over again. After 168 hrs of this, you can take 36 hrs off. I know your other mates get 48hrs every 120 hrs but this is EASA, you know.
Seriously?.... How in hell did it get to where we are today when it's legal for me to work in the aeroplane for 18 hrs and Mr EASA does 8 in his office?
Seriously?.... How in hell did it get to where we are today when it's legal for me to work in the aeroplane for 18 hrs and Mr EASA does 8 in his office?
Big money is what happened: CEOs job is to continually cut operating costs, and crews are expensive because they have to be highly trained, highly proficient and highly skilled - you can't just take someone from the job centre and give them a day's induction course.
So if they can 'get away with' using one crew instead of two crews, they will.
This is why we need to stand up for ourselves. Unfortunately - certainly in the UK - the union and the company councils have clearly been nobbled. Strike action is very rarely taken and rarely even considered. EASA FTLs were just nodded in, and all our union does is talk about things. They never actually do anything. They just talk about fatigue, but never do anything about fatigue.
I mean; "controlled rest", i.e. taking a 20 minute nap sitting in your pilot seat, is a real thing !! That is a blatant admission that crews are fatigued - right there.
Can you imagine if a surgeon, in the middle of an operation; with the patient's chest wide open and tubes everywhere; said to his 'junior' doctor alongside him, "jeez, I am so tired, I cannot keep my eyes open any longer. I am going to take controlled rest", and he sits down with his eyes closed for 20 mins, while all the other doctors just stand around and wait; keeping an eye on the patient's pulse and oxygen levels etc. Utterly ludicrous.
Last edited by Uplinker; 7th Jan 2024 at 12:00.
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+1, or in fact +100.
Big money is what happened: CEOs job is to continually cut operating costs, and crews are expensive because they have to be highly trained, highly proficient and highly skilled - you can't just take someone from the job centre and give them a day's induction course.
So if they can 'get away with' using one crew instead of two crews, they will.
This is why we need to stand up for ourselves. Unfortunately - certainly in the UK - the union and the company councils have clearly been nobbled. Strike action is very rarely taken and rarely even considered. EASA FTLs were just nodded in, and all our union does is talk about things. They never actually do anything. They just talk about fatigue, but never do anything about fatigue.
I mean; "controlled rest", i.e. taking a 20 minute nap sitting in your pilot seat, is a real thing !! That is a blatant admission that crews are fatigued - right there.
Can you imagine if a surgeon, in the middle of an operation; with the patient's chest wide open and tubes everywhere; said to his 'junior' doctor alongside him, "jeez, I am so tired, I cannot keep my eyes open any longer. I am going to take controlled rest", and he sits down with his eyes closed for 20 mins, while all the other doctors just stand around and wait; keeping an eye on the patient's pulse and oxygen levels etc. Utterly ludicrous.
Big money is what happened: CEOs job is to continually cut operating costs, and crews are expensive because they have to be highly trained, highly proficient and highly skilled - you can't just take someone from the job centre and give them a day's induction course.
So if they can 'get away with' using one crew instead of two crews, they will.
This is why we need to stand up for ourselves. Unfortunately - certainly in the UK - the union and the company councils have clearly been nobbled. Strike action is very rarely taken and rarely even considered. EASA FTLs were just nodded in, and all our union does is talk about things. They never actually do anything. They just talk about fatigue, but never do anything about fatigue.
I mean; "controlled rest", i.e. taking a 20 minute nap sitting in your pilot seat, is a real thing !! That is a blatant admission that crews are fatigued - right there.
Can you imagine if a surgeon, in the middle of an operation; with the patient's chest wide open and tubes everywhere; said to his 'junior' doctor alongside him, "jeez, I am so tired, I cannot keep my eyes open any longer. I am going to take controlled rest", and he sits down with his eyes closed for 20 mins, while all the other doctors just stand around and wait; keeping an eye on the patient's pulse and oxygen levels etc. Utterly ludicrous.
EASA FTL - all the UK AOC ever wanted was a level playing field had they not switched to EASA FTL how many UK would be left?. Many of the UK AOC left in either Industrial agreements or FRM agreements when EASA FTL came in. You could argue the previous yearly block hour agreement VS had was a fatigue mitigation also.
One thing for sure where EASA FTL is completely different to CAP371 is that it's so much easier for crews to swap duties - under CAP371 particularly the (archaic) days off rules it was impossible to swap - now it seems to be the in thing. As you know when it comes to swaps or flying on days off for $$$ Fatigue goes out the window - Nb I'm only joking, sort of.
Yes. Sadly that is where so many pilots shot themselves in the foot. They cannot argue fatigue and lack of rest if: when Ops rings up and says they have a bit of a situation and would you be willing to fly tomorrow on your day off for £500 ? And they say yes I will do it.
We - (they) - really need to wok to rule to start with; no overtime etc., and if that doesn't make things easier then strike action must be considered - it is the only defence we have. Talking about it and fatigue monitoring etc. does not cut it.
We - (they) - really need to wok to rule to start with; no overtime etc., and if that doesn't make things easier then strike action must be considered - it is the only defence we have. Talking about it and fatigue monitoring etc. does not cut it.
