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.

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!

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.

Go ahead and question individual or corporate professional standards if you wish - so long as you can provide the evidence to back up your criticism and make the allegations stick.

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?

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:ok:

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 !

Sayagain slowly,

What a fantastic letter. I did enjoy reading it.

Well done.

Please post his reply.

Arrived in my inbox :)

I obviously don't rate a reply...:(

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.

Remember, Lawyers (soliciters) appeal their mistakes, doctors bury their mistakes, pilots die with their mistakes.

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

say again slowly, your letter was obviously too polite!

:hmm:
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.:oh:

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!!

>> 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/

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!

Rubik101

Spot on mate, spot on.

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!

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.

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.

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

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, 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..:confused:

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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 !

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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?.

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:}

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.

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?

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!:yuk:

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. :hmm:

"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!

oops sarong thread:oh:

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

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?