Are we putting profit before safety?
 

easyJet have introduced a new crewing system that is SUPPOSED to save the company a fortune. No problem so far.

However the said system rosters people on a four sector days to change crews four times, positions crews all over the network and generally causes delays and longer hours because half a crew is waiting for the other half who are arriving on a delayed service. On top of this, crew integrity is compromised because half the time the pilots do not know who the cabin crew are , and vice versa, because we are chopping and changig all the time.

All I can say to the people concerned is, if you think the old system was expensive to run, JUST TRY HAVING AN ACCIDENT.

British Airways pioneered this system in the UK and appears to think it a stunning success!

Many airlines no longer co pair the back end with the front end as flight attendants and pilots have different rules governing how much they can work. It is better from the airline's point of view to maximize the productivity of each work group rather than working both to the lowest common denominator, and the sums are large at the end of the month.

As for the cost of having an accident. That is why airlines have insurance. I hate to say it, but its just a balance sheet item to management and as long as they don't run too many of them together in too short a span and thereby attract regulatory interest its no big deal to them. The public doesn't care either. They shop based on price and convienience.

Cheers
Wino

Wino,

The cost of having an accident apart from the human tragedy, is very often an airline going out of business. Where are Pan Am, TWA, Valujet, Swissair, etc now? A UK airline can get one hour more out of cabin crew per duty than they can get out of flight deck crew. If they are rostering to maximums like this to draw the last drop of blood, then they surely will have an accident.

Aircrews, both flight deck and cabin, usually want to fly (it earns them money), they usually want to be productive (job security), and they usually want to have a life (dont we all). If the crews are happy with the rostering, then it is probably a good safe system. If they want to work more, then it is probably inefficient. If they are fatigued, unhappy and permanantly knackered, then I personally don't want to be flying with or on that airline.

All the airlines you listed are either bigger than ever or were poorly managed. (VALUJET is now Airtran, bigger than ever) TWA is AA. Swissair and PANAM fell victim to very poor management. Swissair squandered their money and franchise trying to grow via Sabena and other stupid moves that drained the life blood out of the airline.

I know of no airlines that have gone out of business as a result of an accident. The dip in pax booking was tracked and found to last about 2 weeks (which coincided with the length of news coverage) even in cases where there was clear cost cutting to the point where safety was degraded and the airline was was shut down by the authorities(specifically valujet, who is currently kicking Delta's ass in Atlanta).

PANAM had a problem because of a continuing fear of terrorism, since PANAM was THE symbol of America overseas. PANAM made the most money when it was crashing the most jets. At one point they crashed 5 in about a year (all 707s) and made huge profits that year.

I hate to shatter your illusions but that is life in big business. The man in the board room doesn't know any of the people that will wind up in the smoking hole. They are just numbers on a page. No airline competes on claims of "safety" Its simply a can of worms they don't want to open. If they did, then all aircraft would have predictive windshear, HUDS, enhanced GPWS, TCAS etc. The facts are that untill forced to by the government most airlines don't install such things. Eastern Airlines used to order its aircraft without AUTOPILOTS. Rickenbacker said, I pay them to fly, I won't pay for a autopilot as well. The 2 Jets (707 and DC-8) that ran into each other over brooklyn in the 60s that lead to the 250kts below 10 regulations because 1 of them didn't have DME and over shot the fix. Why no DME? It cost money... Air Inter in Stousburg: No GPWS what so ever in an A320!

Sorry dude, I can continue with the list if you like, but a crash doesn't impact an airline's balance sheet very much at all. The aircraft is insured. Infact, in a case where the airline is having hard times it can help the balance sheet by removing the aircraft from service without having to continue to pay the mortgage. Instead the insurance company pays off the note and the airline is now smaller.




Cheers,
Wino

Wino.............you've gone of thread old chap. I may beg to differ with you on a few points, particularly that the man in the boardroom who "doesn't know any of the people that will wind up in the smoking hole" presumably flies occasionally on his own aircraft.......however, the thread is about rostering, and your comments about being poorly managed does strike a chord.

To thrash aircrews to within a minute of their permissible duty hours (or over) is poor management, and very few UK (or Irish) airlines still do it. The ones that do are pretty well identified on other threads in these hallowed forums.

A rather worrying thing which I read today is that you chaps in the US are allowed to work duties in excess of 16 hour duties. That is considerably more than we poofy limeys are legally permitted to do, and rest assured we get pretty knackered at those girly limits.

Would I be wise to avoid travelling with US carriers because their crews work too hard?

You would most certainly be wise to avoid the non union or weak union ones for just that reason. Stronger Unions tend to protect their employees. AA Pilots have limits that are actually similar to CAP 371 with a certain amount of circadian rythm protection (which we are hoping to improve on this time around).

However, even without union protection the 16 hour duty limit, is overlaid usually by an 8 hour flight limit. So you have to be really poorly managed or abusive to hit the 16 hour limit (and many airlines are).

At the top of the list for abusive scheduling practices would be the nonsked or charter operators. And that holds true on both sides of the Atlantic. Its just the nature of the beast. However, accident statistics have not really pointed to worse safety records, atleast the last time I looked which was about 2 years ago.

And good scheduling practices do not always make for more rested crews. The airlines that pay their crews well and treat them better may allow some of them to pack more "living" into their life resulting in their being more fatigued than the person who is chained to his aircraft. Fatigue is a very funny thing to try and pin down.

Many of the objections to copairings wind up being the disruption of the crews. Who are we laying over with etc. When we used to pair for the whole month, you really got to know each other and the layovers became very enjoyable. That goes away when you change crews every leg, and certainly detracts from the enjoyment of the job, but it can be argued that non copairing improves safety because it tends to make people more by the book. When you fly together for an extended period of time, despite the best efforts you can drift away from SOPs in the free and easy work envirnment as you do what "just works." When you fly the first time all you have is SOPs... Now you get into the discussion of the value of SOPs...

Cheers
Wino

going back to the rostering system..BA pioneered it but with turnarounds in excess of 1 hour. Not 20 mins. I would have thought that so many changes and such short turnarounds must be a nightmare.
Last I heard was that this was changing due to the number of complaints and delays caused. Sounds like somebody is listening.

Funny thing, rostering in airlines. I work for a charter airline Wino. But really we do a schedule. Same flights, week after week, during the summer season. And to be honest, the rosters aren't too bad. Lots of time off, lots of work. A reasonable balance. Few of us complain.

But......rostering in airlines. So....I have an airline. I have X number of aircraft. Therefore I need 5 or 6 or 7 times X crews.

I have a Fire Service (or police, or hospital, railway operator, or car factory, or whatever, shift working) therefore I need Y number of crews.

Funny thing is that people in these industries can tell you what they are doing during Christmas 2003. I can't tell you what I am doing this time next month.

What is the problem with airlines that they cant predict what crews are doing four weeks hence, but the rest of the world can predict more than a year hence.

Rocket science = incomprehensible formulae.

Rostering = For 1 aircraft you need three crews (or whatever) a day.

It is not rocket science.

(Sorry. Very slightly off thread)

Bally,

I did the charter thing too (Airworld, Flying Colours, JMC, Apple Vacations) and the charter company's know their flying schedule much further in advance than the scheduled airlines do. Yet they are chronically incapable of scheduling a pissup in a brewery...

The flights are set years in advance. There is never a change of guage so why can't they schedule? They should hand you your schedule the day you are hired for the next decade or so <G>....

As near as I can figure, the deliberately screw up the scheduling so pilots can get in an uproar and than they can say they fixed something. Funny thing though, they never actually get around to fixing it.

I have a theory about drug testing of pilots. I suspect that drug testing was implemented to make sure that the pilots never got the big picture, becuase they must be smoking something illegal up in management...

Cheers
Wino

If it's legal , Shut up and fly the trip, otherwise quit and let somebody that has the desire to be a professional do it!

blueball, perhaps a professional would pay a little more attention to detail than you have, legality is not the issue here and I'm not sure any of the above have commented on it. The issue is the efficiancy or otherwise of rostering patterns and their potential impact on safety! do keep up old chap :D

Blueball sounds like management to me.

Doesn't matter whether its safe. If its legal you take the plane or are fired....

Just to get back to the point of the thread

"Are we putting profit before safety?"

Whats a profit? To the best of my knowledge we have never made a profit.

Is this an answer to the question?
 

Ladies and Gents,
The thread was started to garner opinion on whether we in the airline industry are putting profit before safety.
It was asked with relevance to Flight and Duty time limitations and the rostering of a single crew for a full days flying. There are a number of issues raised as side lines in the replies we have seen so far but the inital question still hasn't been answered.
The originator was referring to the easyJet system currently prevailing with a number of individual crew members changing in and out of the crew during a multisector day. The Carmen system is supposed to be an all singing, all dancing rostering system it is supposedly successfully used by a number of airlines around the world. The rostering software is not the subject of the question however, the swapping of crew members and excessive positioning is.

Quote:
"However the said system rosters people on a four sector days to change crews four times"


First and foremost, SAFETY: We are all highly trained, and at eJ the training is as good and better than anywhere else, to operate as a crew within our respective roles. It should make no difference to a crews operational effectiveness if members are changed in or out during the day, as long as there is sufficient time to meet the requirements of airmanship and safety regarding crew briefing, flight preparation, TAFs, Fuel load, Wx, NOTAMS, Cabin Prep, Pax safety etc. If this cannot be achieved within a 20 minute turnaround scheduled then so be it.. that means DONT RUSH .. it means do your job properly and to hell with the schedule, this is the only point at which crew changing becomes a safety issue and that issue is immediately resolved with a conscientous approach to your duties. Our prime responsibility is to our passengers safety, airmanship, flying discipline, operational effectiveness etc etc etc. lowest of all priorities is on time performance. If management want to try a system like this then give it a shot, do your best to meet the targets .. just do you job properly and if the OTP falls away then let management address it.


Quote:
"positions crews all over the network and generally causes delays and longer hours because half a crew is waiting for the other half who are arriving on a delayed service."

The issue of positioning crews all over the place is a whole different kettle of fish. What we on the ground see as ridiculous and unnecessary {and often the view from way up on the management mountain is so blurred we may well be correct} but the guts of it is that we are paid to fly (operate machines) and that involves positioning, unsocial hours, no public holidays, few free weekends, broken appointments, unexpected nights away etc etc. If the Company chooses to move people around everywhere, and as long as issues such as personal safety and comfort are adequately addressed, ie you don't send people on trains, busses, ferries etc then there should not be a problem. If these moves mean delays and disruption then it is up to the company to recognise and fix it. Sure it's a drag and quite demotivating to sit in a cab for 2 hours on the M1, but if it is burning duty time and the company is happy with that then that is their call,they are paying the bills. We are employees = tools to be used when and as the company sees fit, within the law. The issue of reasonable working hours is one for unions to negotiate as each company has different requirements of their employees, this however will only be achieved if unions are supported and are able to negotiate effectively.
The only really objectionable thing here is the use of maximum flying duty hours without regard for the time taken to position home etc but this is a result of the 'committee'approach to JAA (remember the camel) and the formulation of what is, in many opinions, a loosley worded, weak and unwieldy set of 'guidelines' = CAP371 without regard for circadian rythym, normal and reasonable lifestyles etc. What other shift worker (let alone one involved in a multitude of highly complex and challenging tasks) you can name works the ridiculous sorts of hours permitted under these guidelines. Who else would accept a 6 day duty period starting with 3 cinsecutive 0330 getups, then a 1720 sign on for an 8 hour duty period and back and to cap it all off (no pun ;) ) to finish with a split duty starting at 1940 and knocking off at 0700? Now go and enjoy your days off.. yeah right.. snore snore snore!
And I am sure there is much worse out there.

Bottom Line: we have FTLs laid down in law, both in CAP371 and each JAA compliant Company Operations Manual but most importantly you are again governed by your obligations to your professional status. This means that if you are too fatigued then DON'T FLY! Use your judgement and to hell with anyone elses opinion. You alone are the only person qualified to determine your fitness for duty. The conformation of an assigned duty period with the law is irrelevant.



Quote:
"On top of this, crew integrity is compromised because half the time the pilots do not know who the cabin crew are , and vice versa, because we are chopping and changig all the time."

With all due respect, my personal opinion is that this does not affect operational effectiveness or 'crew integrity' whatever that may be, perhaps the writer means cohesivness? While it is all well and good to be on first name terms with everyone, when it comes down to it that is not relevant to your performance of your assigned duties. CRM is about optmization of information flow throughout the crew, eg teaching F/Os to be assertive when appropriate, teaching Cabin Staff to speak up when necessary and Captains to listen and make good decisions. Names are not critical to this process although it makes a much more pleasant working environment and everyone I work with prefers it that way.

I am sure that some of the things I have written here are contentious but they are my opinions and freely expressed so spare me a flame war and just post a reasoned answer, preferably only from Pilots, Cabin Crew or those actively involved in rostering. Are we putting profit before safety? I don't believe so.

Edited for my lousy typo's :D

Excellent post, zippyz, and this:

"If this cannot be achieved within a xx minute turnaround scheduled then so be it.. that means DONT RUSH .. it means do your job properly and to hell with the schedule, ...."

is so right. It does, of course, depend on any particular company's response (perceived or actual) to a Captain who 'disrupts' the schedule accordingly?

What exactly is this new system?

Does it really "rosters people on a four sector days to change crews four times, positions crews all over the network and generally causes delays and longer hours because half a crew is waiting for the other half who are arriving on a delayed service"?

Do not Easy Jet in general fly base to base?

Can anyone give a more detailed concept of the rostering system being discussed? Surely any manager is not going to tolerate a system which which causes delays, disruption and added expense, even if he doesn't give a toss about safety!

Swapping crew memebers during a duty doesn't seem very cost-efficient to me- our SOP includes briefing for the entire crew (pointy end and cabin). If you have to repeat this every sector as the crew changes, doesn't it erode any potential time savings?

Puzzle me this....Zippyz and BOAC,

Why do you think we go to the crew room to have a pre flight briefing? Why waste money on them when we can do all our pre flight briefs on board the aircraft? Did you stop to think of the distractions encounterd when you're on a 25 minute turnaround with a fast approaching slot and you're already 30 minutes late? And then the No1 tells you that one of his/her crew will run out of hours on the next sector because they've done 3 sectors already on top of positioning in from Timbuctoo:eek: Can you start to see where I'm coming from? On board the aircraft, on short turnarounds, is not the place for a full pre flight brief. There is no need to do it, it does not add to flight safety, it has been introduced at eJ purely to save money and is therefore, in this case, putting cost before safety.

There are numerous safety issues in addition to the one I have listed here but as they are unique to eJ's SOP's I wont bore you with them on this thread. Suffice to say that to follow our own SOP's is nigh on impossible:rolleyes:

Profit before safety...depends.
IF the crew (pointy end or cabin) are unduly rushed in their respective duties all the time, due to changes, yes safety is compromised.

OTOH, if cockpit and cabin are interchanged on a regular basis, just why would this result in compromised safety? Pilots do their brief as required, same for the cabin. To intregrate the brief of cockpit and cabin all the time is a complete waste of time, in my opinion. As each work to their respective standard procedures, there is no need to constantly brief together.

"Puzzle me this....Zippyz and BOAC"

Whoa TP! I think you are asking the WRONG person?

Ultimately the onus is the Captain to judge whether safety is being compromised, advised by his SCCM and F/O, plus F/E where fitted, and call !STOP! when necessary. That is where the primary 'buck' stops.

411A,

The point being made is that safety will inevitably be degraded due to multiple flight deck changes. Pilots are making decisions re fuel, wx etc on an individual bases. i.e. there is no cross checking on the important decisions with the other flight deck member as per easjets ops manual. We then get into the realm of presuming certain checks have been done. Briefings that are normally done in the briefing room are done in the flight deck.

On my last four sector day I had two F/O's, one aircraft change, 2 new No 1's, and I'm afraid to say that I lost track of the cabin crew down the back. Time allocated for each turn around is 25 mins. With new flight deck and cabin crew joining all the time it makes it that much harder to keep a tight grip on the situation. It's easy to say 'just take your time' but I'd like to see easyJet retain their pax and therefore keep my job.

The moral of this story is make sure your rostering department is under Flight Ops. The Carmen sytem was introduced without any consultation with Flight Ops. End result an expensive and dangerous mistake.

Would agree IBDS,..changing First Officers' in the middle of the day is...not good at all. Very big mistake IMHO.

IBDS- there is nothing new here. BA has been operating with totally separate Flight Crew & Cabin Crew departments & rostering systems for umpteen years. When I flew shorthaul. I had occasionally 4 Cabin Crews in a day. Why do they need so much briefing?- the whole crew are professionals, let them get on with it. The BA experience seems to be the pilots actually operate more flights than the Cabin Crew. Whilst I wouldn't condone this system, I don't feel a finger can be pointed at it to say it's 'unsafe'. More of a hazard is the pressure from over-rapid turnarounds and other areas I think.

I disagree, Notso.

If all goes according to the book, then SOP's forward and aft will take care of it.

However, as soon as anything out of the ordinary occurs, then you have to revert to teamwork. To do that you have to have a team. And if the make-up of a crew is constantly changing throughout the day, then you have lost that element of protection. Put simply, you have just inserted a hole in one slice of Swiss cheese.

Furthermore, the entire design of FTL's in the UK (and elsewhere) includes the assumption that the entire team will be able to brief in the crew room before heading out to the aircraft and (preferably) debrief afterwards. Based upon this debrief, recommendations can be made to company, handling agents' performance reviewed, etc. etc.

The entire exercise smacks loudly to me of a beancounter's idea - false economy and eroded safety margins.

PS I must stress that the above is my personal opinion only, and does not necessarily represent the views of PPRuNe Management or other PPRuNe Moderators. I should have posted this under my normal posting nom-de-plume but neglected to do so.

EJ is on a 5 month trial of Carmen system (ending in October) and all has been explained to EJ crews via communiques from the Ops Director some weeks ago. The trial of the system was driven by the need to cope with the complexity of a rapidly expanding, multi based operation. The point had come where manual rostering was simply not able to cope with the thousands of pairing permutations. It frankly, had nothing to do with profit but everything to do with assisting rosterers to do their job.

It is true that in the first few months it has taken some time to find the right balance. As rostering work some 6 weeks ahead of the published roster it is taking time to remove the more contentious elements of this type of rostering. The concerns of our crew have been heard and Augusts roster has moved away, for the most part, from multiple individual crew changes. Septemeber will see further adjustments.

It is cynical to suggest that the EJ management are oblivoius to the issues raised by our crews and those in the Company will be aware that rostering have/are indeed making changes. Further, there is NO pressure exerted on any crew member to achieve on time performance if in his/her opinion they need more time for a turnaround. ZippZ makes that point well.

A change of Flight or Cabin crew (in its entirety) shouldn't necessarily be a problem. However, The post above from The Barber of Seville is more than a little worrying.

Regularly picking up a fresh co-pilot or No. 1 on a 25 minute turn round strikes me as being a very unsatisfactory way to operate. For those of us with a few hours in our logbooks the potential pitfalls will be obvious.

I can only hope that the guys and gals at the Big O are vigorously pursuing this via BALPA and the CAA.

The following added by edit:

My apologies to no sig, if indeed the sentiments are sincere. My comments were written and posted whilst he/she was doing the same.

The bit I'm not necessarily sold on though.

The answer to the topic question is clearly "YES!"

Who can make a clear case otherwise in the current air transport industry?

Nosig

Your comment on the Carmen system as having 'frankly, nothing to do with profit.....' directly contradicts the reply given to me on the subject by a senior pilot manager.

His reply was ' Yes, but it saves us money.'

The system is a shambles and it would be nice to get a direct acknowledgement of that fact, but I am not waiting for hell to freeze over.

By the way tell the boss that crew sickness is a symptom not the disease.

The answer to question in the thread title is YES.

I am not able to comment on the current working practices at easyJet. However, having had experience of a computer roster system which changes aircraft and crews, I proffer the following:

It is no defence of any working practise merely to say it is within CAP371, is the law and is therefore satisfactory to all concerned. I have never heard an airline pilot say that 'because it's CAP 371 it's OK'

Some (and I means some) changes are inevitable in a high rotation operation. But to build these in to the system is to create yet more pathogens in a safety critical system.

I recall having a new First Officer per sector on a three sector day. The day had its aggravations (don't they all) but having to repeatedly build up my team from scratch made it a darn sight harder than it need be. It is much better to form up a team for the day andiron out all those little communication glitches that inevitably occur when folk are getting to know each other.

Fatigue again comes into it. Add aircraft and crew changes, in a duty which has many of its own challenges, to our system of organisation and you quite obviously make the day more tiring.

For my money the best roster system must be drawn up with the co-operation and understanding of the crews that have to work it.

Imposing working practices on safety professionals will always be a hit and miss affair with inevitable friction.

No Sig,

Sorry No Sig but I can't help but ask a couple of questions.

Firstly why try, and pay for, a new system in the middle of a summer season when you know you are short of crew and the flying programme has increased by such a large amount? Alot of people's time has been taken up with merger. I understand that the decision to merge with Go was, in the big scheme of things, a last min plan but you did know it was going to lay open our resources. Since when has there been a summer without slots? I only hope for the sake of my shares the cost of chartering aircraft for pax and crew is not getting out of control. I thought before Carmen my rosters were issued from AIMS? And another thing.. why wasn't Flight Ops consulted?

I won't go on as this is not the place and I'm obviously not 'in the big picture' as you suggest. Maybe as aircrew we feel a little cut off from these decisions and more feedback would help reduce the frustration. For the purposes of the evaluation might I add that frustration and stress are safety issues that have to be considered when compounded by a Carmen roster. I'm glad to hear that the rank and file are being listened to. We are of course batting from a different pitch as the 'no blame culture' effects the office but quite rightly not the aircrew. Please don't get me wrong I do think that the no blame culture has a place in the office it's just that it does tend to seperate us.

I do hope we succeed and I'd like to think that I'm in it for the longhaul but there isn't one of us out there that can physcally and mentally sustain the current situation. Please take this into consideration when evaluating the Carmen system and the crewing levels. I hope I don't appear to be too much of wet blanket but I know I'm only human and open to make mistakes. But if the kitchen gets too hot......

Regards BofS

How can any airline management not think safety is compromised by this sort of rostering.

Captain gets a new F/O, so presumably has to brief said worthy re a/c tech state, fuel state, WX etc etc etc. At the same time keep an eye on the turnround, slot, developing WX, De-iceing (and other winter operating factors)

Cabin crew changes. Presumably they have to brief each other on any peculiarities on the aircraft cabin also. This with all the other attendant problems of turnround plus get their pax off, get to a new aeroplane, get pax on etc. All in 25 mins? I don't think so!!

Not a good idea, definately a "bean counter" concept and not conducive to safety.

Doc C.

Pat Pong, my comments are indeed sincere. Regarding pressure to meet OTP over the safe operation of our fleet, if you doubt me ask RDW himself.

GroundHog Night

The basis of the system is that it takes all crew resource and, within the default parameters, creates work patterns (pairings) which make the best use of available crew. That is efficient and therefore can save costs, e.g. although not popular with all, it significantly halved night stops thereby saving money, on the other hand this requires a higher degree of crew movements. Until all bases are fully up to strength then positioning will be necessary. I have not contradicted your senior pilot, he's right it does save money but, I say again, the introduction of the system is primarily to enable rostering to do their job efficiently, that of course will bring savings.

If you have missed the acknowledgement by the management group that we induced a complexity that we have had difficulty coping with operationally, then you may find it here. Further, if you examine the overall rostering patterns for August and latterly in September you'll see that the concerns of the crews have been heard.

Is this the real issue?
 

Well for a start Thank God to see some reasoned debate!
Many of the posts have offered varying views on the thread and many have merit and raise different issues. This is the great thing about a somewhat anarchistic communication forum, you will always get some dross but on the whole this thread makes interesting reading.

The main thrust of the replies in the affirmative is that the multiple changes of pilots and cabin staff in some way imposes a time pressure on the crew thereby compromising safety. The reply from 'no sig', apparently a member of eJ NMC, refutes this and I am sure all line crews at eJ would have to agree with him.. albeit I am not a Captain at eJ but I know of NO instance where a crew has been time pressured to meet a schedule by anyone other than themselves. Sure we get encouraged to try and meet OTP targets and the company sets us some demanding tasks but never have I heard of eJ actually pushing anyone at all to cut corners in any way. This is first and foremost a safety oriented company.

Those in the negative seem to generally follow the reasoning of: Our job as Pilots is just that.. Pilotage = the action or business of piloting and the guidance of ships or airplanes from place to place (a funny word few will recognise ;) ) but I am unable to find in any definition of that word a reference to schedule management or time pressure. This may seem like semantic pedantry but I do really believe that we are NOT managers, we are operators... OK we get the sharp end view of the operation and have much to offer the ‘office managers’ in addition to our hard earned skills, licences and experience, if they choose to heed it.. but the fundamental remains.. our function is to operate safely.. Pilotage refers soley to the operation of a vehicle from one place to another. The safety of that operation finally rests solely with the Pilot/s, ultimately the Captain.

Just a note on the idea of briefing before a flight:
If instead of doing one ‘first flight of the day’ briefing you have to do four then so be it. The crew room is just a meeting place with information readily to hand, all that same information is available in the aircraft. You can brief just as well sitting in your 'office chair with a view' as you can standing around a table, in some way you are not distracted when in the aircraft ;) The onus is on the individuals to ensure we do our jobs well and I can honestly say that at the sharp end in eJ we do! So we come again to the issue of time pressure..and I think that it is the change away from the traditional flight preparation process that some find disconcerting rather than a concern that we don’t get enough time to prepare for a sector or series thereof. We are an innovative company and some of the innovations need a bit of tuning.. but like any orchestra with a new melody we all need to concentrate on and play our respective parts, if we do that to the best of our ability then we give the ‘conductor’ the best chance of tuning things to make a harmonious operation. We will always take all the time that is needed to play our part well, and there will be no questioning that. Let the ‘conductor’ rearrange the score. Again I stress, DON'T RUSH!

Just so ppl don’t think I am here as a company sycophant, I am as unhappy as everybody else with the levels of disruption to our personal lives currently being experienced. It has made an otherwise highly motivated and procompany group of employees quite unhappy and it needs VERY urgent attention. In ways this thread is emotionally hijacked by this quite different issue and I will risk airing my thoughts on it.
A roster is published not for conformance with FTLs or any other piece of legislation, that could be done without ever publishing a roster. A roster is published well in advance of the scheduled duties so that we, the operating crews, can have certainty and predictability in our personal lives in a very varied shift working environment.
Our job as Pilots and Cabin Crew is unique in many ways, only one of which is the strange hours we are required to work so that our companies remain successful in a highly competitive environment, it is completely different from just about any other job you can name. We have no public holidays, regular weekends, are away from our families and friends at important times, required to sleep away from our homes on a regular baisis etc etc.. but it is all part of the turf. We get some extra leave for it..but in reality that does little to compensate.. I would gladly give up the additonal leave to fly a 40 duty hour week Monday to Friday, have Christmas, Easter, Public Holidays and special family days off etc etc. Nor does any other job that comes to mind have you trying to change your circadian rythym nearly 36 hours in a week of duties. Starting with very early getups and then finishing work at almost the same time you were getting up (sounds like Monty Python ;) ) by the end of the week is ridiculous and places very heavy and pretty much unnecessary strains on us as humans operating in a high stakes, complex and challenging environment let alone as people with families, friends and lives of our own. This is the error, IMVHO, that is causing the current problem at eJ. A lack of consideration and forethought of the human aspects of what is otherwise probably a profit maximising system. We have been assured that this major problem is to be addressed so lets wait and see a bit. Just remember: Our jobs are not our life, our jobs are what we do to support our lives and our lives should be prioritised above any profit/financial goals. Not very orange perhaps but I hope relasistic.

BoS

I agree with much of the sentiment expressed in your posts but must disagree on the no-blame question. You seem to accept that its OK to separate the aircrew from the office in this regard and I have to ask why?

I accept that if aircrew are found wilfully neglegent with regard to flight safety then of course blame must be apportioned. However I can see absolutely no difference between a policy from the top which might have the same impact. Decisions such as crew numbers, rostering policy and many others have a direct impact on the safety of the operation, as we well know. As you said at the end of your first post...' End result an expensive and dangerous mistake'. It's called corporate liability.

I no longer believe that the rank and file are listened to, its the OTP statistics and the bills that make changes. I and others consider the kitchen well alight and if you are a wet blanket you are desperately needed!

Nosig

Sorry but that's simply not good enough.

As an example of what happens in reality I would use the observations of a F/O made recently. During a short turnaround he was to join the Captain who operated the aircraft inbound. As he was strapping into his seat the question was asked ' Are you ready for a brief?' ie. the take-off brief! As he had not yet even seen the met, the notams, flight plan or practically any other information pertinent to the flight, he very sensibly declined.
This is not to judge the crew but it shows how the new system adds to existing pressures given the very nature of the operation.

Nosig

I'm sorry but the messages are clearly contradictory to me, the pilots newsletter of June puts a figure to the savings.(That was the theory!)

My August roster has more crew pairing than my July one.

Everyone with whom I have discussed the letter from VHP considers it at best weak, at worst patronising. You're right, it does mention Carmen somewhere down the page but the crews thought it should have been the banner headline.

RDW's comments re crew sickness and the ramp at Luton just confirm the above.

zippyz has pretty much summed up the problem in the last few lines of his latest post.

You know its very interesting here and what I have noticed is that the rushing and the pressure is actually done by the pilots. Not the roster. If you just do your own thing at your normal pace and schedule be damned, then they will adjust the schedule to allow more time and thus reduce the delays.

"Pilot Pushing" is by and large self induced. We are all a highly motivated goal oriented lot. Many of us came out of the military. Hence the letter that Cecil Ewiell wrote to the pilots of American Airlines after Little Rock as he was leaving the position of Chief Pilot.

It was called : There is no Mission.

The thrust of it was exactly what the title says. This is not a war, lives will not be lost if we don't fly. However, pressing on no matter what WILL cost lives.

It was a good letter and the only time in my career that I have heard such a thing from management. (I have worked at 7 airlines) Usually a pilot is doing a rug dance because a gate agent complained he was slow to push back or something.

Cheers
Wino

Years ago it was common practise in SV to change aircraft (L10, domestic) in the middle of a day due to fleet rotation. Usually this was when we were rather late and the turn around tight. Received a memo from the Fleet Manager indicating that crews should "hurry up" so as to minimize delays. (This was after the company "thought" that they had too many crews and so started not renewing contracts, and many promptly resigned, thus now short).
I walked into the FM's office with the ops manual and asked..."which part do you want me to ignore, in order to "hurry up?" Turns out I was the fifth that day that did so (all training Captains).
Memo promptly recinded and aircraft rotations were done at the end of the day.
Problem solved.

Flanker,

I agree. I was just trying to find something nice to say while sucking on my wet blanket. Yes,the Carmen side of the rostering has increased in August.

Wino,

Why produce unworkable rosters that end up costing pax goodwill, company money and on a side note bring safety into question? It just wasn't thought out. :confused: I've been in one less airline than you and I've never seen a mess like this.

Regards BofS

Are we saving money?look at the amount of lrv's or refunds offered,look at the amount of subcharters since the pairings.The
company wastes money from so many areas of the operation but
they seem more intent on saving money on the trivial matters than addressing the real and important issues.ej is not a small outfit anymore but some of the management mentality is still a couple of years behind reality,as for the pairings its no coinicidence that the samaritans number has been added to the speedial in NMC.Can't wait for the next 100 aircraft to arrive!