Daily Mail and fatigue
 

Some cost-cutting airlines are making pilots work even longer hours | Daily Mail Online

Like the Ryanair comment

Like a broken record, it's been the same for the past 10 years

I have never heard anything so irresponsible...and factually incorrect.

Astounded !
 

I find my self almost unable to say this but The Daliy Mail has published something about aviation that contains more truth than hype or downright lies.

Fatigue is a real issue and needs to be addressed, his the mail touched on as well as the disruption of sleep patterns that is the primary cause of fatigue.

You're our hero ;)

No casualties so nobody cares.

Some of us work more than 2000 hours a year and that still allows us to have a full 8 hours sleep each night and 2 days off every week ans 2 weeks holiday a year, FFS don't know yer born.

The only outright lies in this article were apparently made by some cynical slave-driving propagandist at Ryanair.

For once, well done the DM!

Someone should make a charge of 'being economical with the truth' against RYR.

Your ignorance is showing. The hours per year are only the time from pushback to park. It does not include sims, sign on and sign off times nor time between sectors. It sure as hell doesn't include the effects of getting up at weird times of the night or overnight flights. For some of us, time zones also play an important part in fatigue management.

LUXURY!!! Our boss used to make us get up before we'd gone to bed, sweep the runway and lick the ice off the wings.


I can't remember a time in the last 50 years this hasn't been an issue right across the industry. I used to fly with one bloke who'd ask for me when he was going to drive ooop north in the early hours. As a sprog, I'd enjoy spending a couple of hours under the stars single crewing. "Don't you land it!" He used to say, as he was nodding off.

Didn't do much good. Smashed himself up really badly after one flight. Odd thought comes to mind. He might not have done that if he'd been with me that night.

It wasn't allowed then. If I'd even shut my eyes for a moment, it's likely I'd be prodded with an angry finger. The glared rebuke on one occasion was worse than the prod.

One company. 500 hours a year. Penalty to the company for going over that was £50 per hour - IN 1972. That was one heck of a lot of money back then.

Next company, just legal limits but even then several guys would go over the yearly maximum of 1,000. Fantastic flying though.

Ex Dubai
 

While I think you have hit the nail on the head with the "no casualties no one cares " comment the driver for better rostering and more crews will come from the number of pilots who go to their doctors with problems as the result of fatigue.

Eventually it will become cheaper to employ a few more pilots rather than pay pilots to sit at home on the sick with fatigue...........as always money will be the driving force.

But if your pilots are "self-employed" you don't pay them when they are off sick, so you don't care.


On a slightly different theme, when Australian train drivers wore found to be falling asleep when their train was crossing the many miles of the flat, featureless Nullabor Plain, the solution was to introduce the "Dead Man's Handle". The deadman has two states, say UP and DOWN. It does not any direct effect on the train when operating normally, but if its state is not changed from UP to DOWN, or vice versa, every few seconds, the drive is disengaged and the brakes applied.

You cannot apply the brakes on an aircraft in flight, but it should be easy to set up the system to make a loud noise if neither the flight controls nor the deadman are moved within a specified time.

It's already been done.

Such a function has already been around for years on some types ..it's called "pilot alert", "pilot response" or similar. Lack of pilot activity (usually the system monitors switch selections) after a predefined period(s) starts triggering warning messages and fairly soon thereafter loud noises.

However your still treating the symptom, not the underlying cause.

But if your pilots are "self-employed" you don't pay them when they are off sick, so you don't care.

That's what needs shutting down PDQ: and it is all in their own hands = the pilots. Own worse enemies. Have been since 70's. It's all come back to sting them.

What has been the effect on annual production with those companies who used not to use a rolling duty roster but zero'd hours at a convenient date for the company, but are not now allowed to do so? (is that the case under EASA?) This included not crediting accumulated annual hours already in the log-book when joining, but starting from zero? It was very easy to go >FTL limit in a rolling 12 months. But which self-employed pilot is going to refuse to work for some more dosh having coff'd up for much of the costs during transition?

Sweep the runway ? LUXURY!!!! We used to have to lick taxiway clean wit' tongue.
(good old Monty P days ; took the sting out of long duty days/nights on Taceval)

We used to have to lick taxiway clean wit' tongue.

Runway? LUXURY. Grass. Ya wouldn't want to be licking that! Hey Sid, winds from up north; shift them cows to the east a bit and let's get going. While yer at it, the sheep to the west. I'll gi ya a low pass on th' eturn so as ya can light the fire drums. In ta wind this time ya sorry excuse for a .............

I agree with the effects of so called self employment but not having crews to fly the aircraft is also an economic driver, especially when the pax start claiming the compensation for delayed flights that is EU law.

As I said above, money will drive he situation.

I agree. But how do you want to explain that to a pilot at FR? The guy has a contract with one of those filthy agencies, and he doesn't get paid when he is sick. And we booth know that there are more companies like FR out there.

16 years ago a german electronic store created the marketing slogan "meanness is cool". And that's the way how people in our days purchase their tickets. As long as people are able to puchase a ticket from point X to spain for 50€ or less, nothing will change.

Interesting in the light of a discussed strike at Virgin.

by Richard Branson:

"Companies do not need to look after customers; companies need to look after employees and they will look after customers." or words to that affect. Quoted in UK papers during the past couple of weeks; implying that if the company creates a correct culture with its employees then they will carry that through to the customer, and everyone wins. It makes perfect sense, but does it happen in your outfit?