Attitude, from management, can be everything. It needs to fair & honest. They demand loyalty and unquestionable obedience. It needs earning. If they want pliable 'yes men' then they should change their recruitment criteria. If you employ well educated team/crew problem solving and problem avoiding leaders you should expect individuals who have questioning minds with some resistance to utter BS & disrespect. The vocational aspect of being a pilot has been abused for too long.
I worked for a young growing LoCo where the MD, CP & head of rostering all disliked pilots. There was supposedly an open-door policy, but that seemed to be only if you were invited, usually tea no biscuits. All touchy feely publicly, quite different out of sight.
At recruitment the CP told me they produced the required productivity in 14-16 days/28 of a random roster. I suggested that this meant 12-14 days off/28. This was not denied and I joined up. I then found head of rostering operated a max 8 days off/28 policy as that was the limit. CP had no authority over rostering????? It was a con. The consequence of this was that you could not have extra days off. Duty days were filled in by totally unnecessary SBY's. There were even days of taxying to one airport A, pax-ing to another airport B, flying a single sector to airport C then taxying back to your start point, all so you didn't have an extra day off. CP denied aircrews worked shifts. Office staff had only 8 days off, so why not pilots.
I suspect that those pilots who work fixed 5-3/5-4/5-4/5-3 etc. must have, especially in the shoulder & winter months, many unnecessary SBY's. That is ridiculous particularly if you are away from home at some distant base. Demoralising in extreme: and at one airline all for no pay, but at your own expense. Limits are indeed targets.
It's time this attitude changed.

Aluminium Shuffler

I worked for them for six years and it felt like I could have written this post. Your comment about new labour is exactly how I felt about them. I have held back from writing about it, as I have let it go, but maybe karma is coming home.

Aluminium. I appreciate it was a few years ago but I can only repeat what I've said before - ring your manager, or ring crewing then your manager or even better go see him/her.
Wiggy Most airlines in the UK now work to industrial limits and within that want to get as much productivity of their (highly paid) asset. I don't see too much wrong with that but eccept that its more than moaning Easyjet Brits.
My only question is if its that bad why aren't we hearing from FR pilots on the issue

Because they are up against a Management that are in a different league of aggressiveness and are unable to secure union recognition let alone the ability to strike.

And this is not just about the amount that you work but the pattern that you work. Maybe the FR pilots' working patterns are more palatable?

fgmc

The whole issue of management at both companies is very interesting. Having worked for both I far prefer the 'do what it says on the tin' type at Ryanair.

The rostering and stability at Ryanair (when I was there) was very good, unfortunately the opposite was true of easy.

Just my 2c

I sit on a FRMS committee which only has about 25% of it's members actively flying the line. (I don't count managers as they don't do the fatiguing rosters). The comments I often hear is that the roster pattern is "legal" therefore it's OK. I like to point out that it's also legal for the pilots to use TOGA thrust on every take off for five minutes. But if they did that then we would have to either cut the services or buy more aircraft as they would spend so much time in engineering having engines changed.

I realise it seems contradictory, but I agree entirely with fmgc and Stan Wooley. There is just simply no way to object at RYR - unions membership can get you sacked, certainly union recruiting or overt support will (for example the wearing of RPG lanyards being made a sackable "gross misconduct" action), and an utterly bent, ineffectual authority, plus the lack of employee legal protection that is evaded by making most staff false "contractors" - it really is a case of sticking it out or leaving. But for all the problems, it was a less duplicitous, back stabbing and two faced place than Ezy. At least at RYR they were honest about what they wanted, and you could see who your enemy was and devise a strategy to bypass them. They also held grudges less if you played their game and found your way around the system - it was only if you openly defied them that you got into serious trouble. RYR mgmt are very shouty and threatening, but most of it is bluster, you just have to think about what you're doin. At Ezy, they're smiling assassins and you'll never know you've crossed someone until too late.

Oh, and Stan, glad you like the parallel with Blair and his cronies. I can go on to make comparison to the style of blaming the workforce for all the failed policies, like they blamed the NHS, teachers, police, firemen and so on, the unchecked mushrooming of special projects managers just like Blair's proliferation of Quangos, the swelling of unaccountable managers and the utter blindness to the workforce's view oft he management, just like Blair and Brown being unable to see public opinion turn against them, believing instead their own spin. And of course the ill-researched major policy changes, like changing to Airbus without understanding that the pilots would need retraining (CEO RW really didn't comprehend it - it was only the trg dept that raised the issue and pointed out they'd need a swell of pilot numbers to cope with pilots coming off the line for three months), comparing in ill-planning to Blair's invasion of Iraq, and the refusal to accept the CAA requirement to put an extra cabin crew member on with the increase from 149 to 156 seats with the very real argument "but we're easyJet!" seeming to be the same as Blair's attitude to the UN... The parallels are endless.

ALu Shuffler

:ok:

to Moderator: What about combining this with the thread on 'Terms & Conditions'? They are both discussing the same topic.

Post #67 sums it up nicely. TOGA is designed for 5 minutes of use and for that extra boost when needed. Not for everyday routine use. If only Flight Time Limitations were viewed the same. Unfortunately they are not.

An interesting thing with EASA is it gives the commander authority to reduce the FDP and increase rest requirements following a duty. Can't say I have used this so far, but it's something worth putting in your mind.

This is an old EZY issue that is just resurfacing. A while ago they declared that meals could not be eaten on short sectors, as that was detrimental to flight safety. And then they declared that meals could not be eaten on the ground, as it was delaying flights. Go figure.

As to bringing your own food. Firstly, we pay for the awful food provided. Secondly, there are still airports with bolshy security that will take many types of food off you (gravy is liquid). And there are also many boIshy CC who will deliberately bring in the hot dinner half way down the descent (too busy before....). This is not the silver-platter world of BOAC, this is the world of the Greasy Spoon truck stop, filling up 20 mugs of tea without lifing the spout and dropping some fag-ash in the last three cups.

A while ago they declared that meals could not be eaten on short sectors,

So, on the multi sector LTN - Scotland, LTN - AMS, UK - BFS and no doubt many others, when is the crew supposed to take on flight safety necessary sustenance. In my last airline's Ops manual there was a commendable statement that "the captain will ensure, in consultation with the No.1, that the service schedule will include time for the crew to have meal breaks." Great stuff for the XAA to 'approve' but total BS in what schedule the company imposed on the CA's. The only chance they often had was to grab a bite from a nutrition bar or Mars. The idea of sitting down for a hot meal was fantasy.
Meanwhile the company had built a brand new canteen for use by the ground staff at any time of choosing and especially during their lunch break with tables on the grass on the sun.
It was that 'turning the blind eye' from the XAA, and the disrespect shown from the management, that mad me realise it was time to bail out before I needed to call sick while attending an anger management course.

Rat, that exact thing happened at EZY. Back in the days of the old HQ building on the corner opposite the fire station, they made a large extension for a quite nice canteen. We'd go in there for a coffee and snack on airport standby, but some animals are more equal than others, so while receptionists, ops and crewing staff, managers and other HQ staff were encouraged to waste work hours in there and use their unrestricted company mobiles for personal calls, a memo was sent out banning all crew from entering the canteen. I hope that double standard is not still in force.

AS that's absolute rubbish :=

Very interesting. I completely concur with Stan. I also worked with the Orange set in the fairly early days. Coming from a relatively (!) 'legacy' background I was looking forward to my new short haul lifestyle. Whereas in my previous existence the relationship between management and pilots was relatively benign I was astonished at the hostility to the pilot group within easy. Essentially the prevailing view was that we were a bunch of overpaid prima donnas and our laughable obsessions with such trivia as fatigue, multi sector days and crew food were merely self absorbed obstacles to airline accountant nirvana. It would appear that the same old tedious issues continue to surface. I agree with the view that, although I have never worked for them, the Ryanair 'just do your job' philosophy worked well in comparison to the false pretence that easy gave to the world of actually caring for the pilot lifestyle concerns. In reality they did not give a rat's posterior and I am sure, still don't. I am not sure that the fabled staff canteen actually banned pilots, but on the one occasion that I ventured there in uniform I was viewed with distaste. The comparison with New Labour is interesting and has been made before: a lot of spin and deceit behind the scenes.

What strikes me as curious is that the MD and senior management has changed at least 4 times in the past 16 years since ez became stabilised and set off on its investment & expansion plans. How is it that the attitude from the very early days of a struggling embryonic airline can have survived 4 generations? From conversations it seemed the 'orange' image of being bright and shiny on the outside was a rather dirty rusty brown on the inside. One would have hoped the changes of a senior management and the arrival of BALPA would have created a constructive positive adult environment. What went wrong?

This may seem a bit naïve, but I would like to think for an airline with the scale of Easyjet it would not be beyond the wit of man to device rosters that both maximised working hours and let people rest.

Is the problem a lack of will on the part of management or the nature of the beast?

What would a 'decent' EASA compliant roster look like, and is it deliverable given the economics of the low cost model?

SLF3

The will has to be there.

I worked for an airline where there was continuing complaint about the rosters. They were inefficient, tiring and as a result frustrating. We knew how they could be improved, and wrote a demonstration for debate. IT was only a small charter airline, 6 a/c. Our roster produced good efficient improved productivity. The reply was, "you have too many days off." Case closed.
In my LoCo days rostering started with days off, 8 days max and only 2 days off together; they then fill din the gaps with duties. It didn't matter if they were efficient, rostering said the crews were working the maximum number of days so management had no complaint. Completely the wrong way round; to plan a roster starting with non-duty time rather than actual work. Daft!
That is something the fixed roster system may lead to. Too many inefficient days. The guys who are based up north in Scotland, or down in TFS or LPA. Most of the flights are long, so flying hours ad up quickly. What % of useless SBY's are in a roster so that you do not get extra days off. How many times are there 3 crews on SBY for 1 a/c? I suspect the contractors do far too many SBY's for no pay, away from home, just to complete 5 days duty. It makes sense for the employees to be maxed-out first and let the zero-hour workers get screwed.

Stiglet, it's not rubbish at all. The memo went out not long after the new canteen was completed that crew were not allowed to use it. It wasn't often enforced, but quite a lot of cabin crew at the time stopped using it, more worried about breaking that rule than the bulk of the pilots were. But there were occasions that some meeley mouthed manager would enforce it if they saw us in there. Maybe it was before your time, or maybe you're an EZY sycophant; it makes no odds, the rule existed, and is extremely illustrative of the culture at the time. Like I said, I hope it changed.