Pilots protest over flying hours
 

Pilots protest over flying hours

Airline pilots who say long flying hours are "putting lives at risk" are to hold demonstrations across Europe.

European air crew unions argue current rules governing how long they can fly for are unsafe, with fatigue a factor in 15% of accidents.

But the European Aviation Safety Agency says it is still considering a scientific report on the issue.

There will be no demonstrations in the UK because industrial action by pilots is outlawed.

British pilots are expected to join demonstrations on the continent with colleagues from 35 other countries.

It is not clear whether the action will cause disruption to travellers.

Pilots and air crew have complained that their working conditions have deteriorated as the airline industry looks to cut costs.

The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) said two million leaflets would be handed out across Europe by the protesters.

The general secretary of Balpa, Jim McAuslan, said he feared that attempts by the EU to standardise working conditions by 2012 would put more pressure on pilots.


This is a defining moment in how passengers will be protected
Jim McAuslan,
British Airline Pilots Association

He said: "Only fatigue experts understand the impact on a body of flying through so many time zones, having consecutive early starts and late duties and all the other factors that make up a pilot's life.

"At the beginning of this year some of the most noted fatigue experts in the world presented their report which concluded that the EU rules were indeed unsafe.

"This is a defining moment in how passengers will be protected."

A Department for Transport spokesman insisted that safety would not be compromised by the new rules.

He said: "The European Aviation Safety Agency is in the process of considering the responses to its consultation on a first draft of rules establishing flight and duty time limits.

"While these are unlikely to be finalised until some time in 2011, we are confident they will maintain the same high level of safety as the current rules.

"The safety of passengers and crew is our top priority and we will not allow this to be compromised."

Wrt 'no demonstrations in the UK because industrial action by pilots is outlawed'.... err, since when did being a civilian pilot prohibit one from taking industrial action?!

Devils Advocate,

My understanding, of my beloved BBC text, is that pilots are not allowed to hold demonstrations in the UK. Industrial action might be ok.

Obviously English is not my first language.

Rwy in Sight

Well, I think that joining any form of protest, meeting or demonstartion during the time you are NOT on duty, meaning in your free time, is not a form of industrial action or strike. I am sure that "even" in the UK vereybody is free to join any kind of peaceful protest.

As far as I know there are NO industrial actions, some would call it strikes, planed.

The plan for today is, to make the travelling public aware of the problems caused by long duty hours etc.

The 'public' does not care...they want cheap fares, period, especially the bucket and spade brigade.
These 'demonstrating' pilots are waisting their time.:rolleyes:

411A
 

I'm afraid you've hit the nail squarely on the head...most of the UK travelling public regard spending more than 10 - 20 quid on an airline ticket to their holiday home/stag night/shopping haunt in Europe as being "ripped off".

Daily Mail version :

Exhausted pilots 'putting millions of passengers at risk' | Mail Online

From the BALPA website (courtesy of Sepla).
How rosters could look under new EASA rules.
http://www.balpa.org/Document-Librar...009-10-05.aspx

from down under
 

pointless:

Is it not pointless to post a link that requires the user to login to a "secure" site?

P.Username says in post #9 of this thread

"From the BALPA website (courtesy of Sepla).
How rosters could look under new EASA rules.
http://www.balpa.org/Document-Librar...009-10-05.aspx”

It seems to be not possible to access this document without being a BALPA member.
This pprune is a planetary website, so it should be understood and tolerated that the vast majority of us are neither members nor potential members of BALPA (British Airline Pilots’ Association)
If this is an important document for international consideration so please cut copy and post the document here.
Thanks.

For those of you in the UK.... why not join BALPA over this crucial issue and help protect yourself, your colleagues and the travelling public. For those outside the UK, perhaps your own union could help you with their interpretation of the proposed rules.

For those souls either unfortunate enough to live somewhere that does not allow unions and for those too short sighted to choose to belong to a pilot union then why not try searching for the source document yourselves (Brussels/Strasbourg?).

It looks like BALPA thinks that it can make progress on this without any help from outside.
We will see.

On what do you base:-

Balpa is working with the European Cockpit Association (ECA) on this (and other issues). If you mean without help from those outside of a recognised union/association who have just tagged along now then yes I suppose Balpa/ECA would prefer to work in that manner.

Do not care?
 

"The 'public' does not care...they want cheap fares, period, especially the bucket and spade brigade."
Oh yes I ******** well do. If I thought an airline was working their crew into both our graves (smoking hole in ground?) I would NOT fly with them or be quiet. At the moment I think the number of hours is OK but the combination of lates & earlies concerns me.
regards,
Joe Public

You can find out more in about this on the IFALPA website International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations - IFALPA (current edition of InterPilot) and also in the press release section.

Pilot has hangover - Daily Hate camped outside house, thrown in jail, gallows constructed.

Pilot physically and mentally exhausted - Who cares? Overpaid prima donna. Sack him if he goes sick.

I fully expect my noble colleagues to be totally ignored.:ugh:

I went along with Pilot Pete some years ago to lobby my MEP who was the "raconteur" if that's the right word, when the initial legislation was passed at the European Parliament. It was quite clear that the individual concerned hadn't a clue about fatigue or the issues involved (not bad for a Labour MEP). His view was the legislation should be passed, then reviewed and changed if necessary. His first 2 ideas came to fruition and the review showed that the legislation was fatiguing.

Legislation in the UK still requires pilots not to fly if they are fatigued or if they consider that the rostered flight would make them fatigued.

Simple solution is don't to do the flight and fill in the sick form with the simple word fatigued. No manager would dare to touch you.

What difference do you think BALPA will make? In my experience the grand total of the square root of diddley squat.

Firestorm, unfortunately BALPA has it's hands tied behind it's back by anti-union legislation and the very nature of many pilots, who are quite content to stand by and barrack from the sidelines without contributing anything for the common good - I'm thinking in particular of the free-loading element, i.e. non-members.