The new easyjet rosters

[Damienmk]

Guys,

All your comments are interesting and clearly the industry has many strong willed people who have their opinions and aren't afraid to voice them!! What is pleasing though, is that there appears to be a real genuine interest in resolving the issues that affect the industry. Most coppers moan for moaning sake then turn up to work the next day with the same gripe!!

Good luck in your endevours to try and get a shift pattern that suits all. Hopefully in the not to distant future, I'll be joining you in trying to acheive that goal!!

[Yarpy]

I suppose the object of a dry, dusty, academic report is to support the policy makers in their decisions. That is, if they ever bother to make any. The Icon Consulting report interests me as I met one of the authors. The balance of the report was written from field studies. I.e. interviews with pilots. It was set against a climate of changing economic conditions. The CAA presumably wanted to assess the impact of the market on the guys in the cockpit.

Of course, since the report was written we have had 9/11 and things have tightened up considerably.

What the report author said to me off the record was far more pithy than report itself. It really is worth a good read. Like aviation itself the devil is in the detail.

There are, I believe, over 50 low cost carriers round Europe. Flying Quill, it is good to hear that you feel unpressured on safety grounds. I worked for several UK airlines. Some might have had a 'just' operational culture. Some most definitely did not and regularly lent on pilots to cut corners. I was offered a LHS with a lo co but turned it down. Friends who work in that sector have different stories to tell quite frankly.

The stress issue is interesting. I can recall three colleagues who lost their medical through stress. One never flew again, one was demoted to the RHS and another returned to flying and did really well for himself. For one guy I know it was a commercial decision taken near the end of an FDP that through him out of kilter so to speak. Either the airline pushed him too far or he was too obliging and helpful. Who knows.

I got away with it all over 20 years or so. 900 hours a year and young family doesn't temp me at all these days.


Right, 0610 hours and the kids are starting to stir . . .

[Doug the Head]

The 3 biggest problems with EZY rosters:

1) The total lack of EZY management to invest in it´s "number one asset" (it´s employees) while at the same time,

2) The British conservative mentality of having ´fixed paterns.´ For some reason people want to be able to know if they will be off on 17 February 2016... They call that "stability" but in a poorly run company like EZY the results are: anything BUT stability (roster changes) and being too knackered to do anything significant on those desperately needed off days.

The solution: investing in software that allows people to build their own schedules. This software (do a google search with "preferential bidding system") is readily available, but it means that both pilots and management have to chang their conservative mentality which is problem number three:

3) A lack of willingness in the UK to inovate and change. People don´t fix things until it´s too late and it has fallen apart.

Every year the original EZY spirit and philosophy falls apart a little bit more, while nobody dares to take responsibility for making drastic improvements. Just a ´quick fix´ and move the same problem forward another couple of months...

[Gunman returns]

Damienmk,

I was a copper in the Met for 15 years before I became a pilot. I now fly the 737 for a Loco. Your posts show a slight naivety towards police work which leads me to believe you have not been doing it for very long. Lets start with the shifts: I was always a shift worker in the police but be prepared for a shock mate.The earlies start much earler-In the police the earliest I was out of bed was 0430-loco 0300 regularly.Police-get home from early-1500.Loco 1800 back again 0300 for the next day. Late starts-police,leave home 1330 home at 2300.Loco leave home at 1130 home at 0100.
You mention being shot at,abused etc. Yes I agree stressful(though I would be interested to hear if you have ever been shot at). But really stressful events are not common in the police. ( And I say that having driven the area car around Forest Gate, East London, one of the most crime ridden boroughs in the country for 8 years)Every day in the airline world you will be landing in ****e weather etc with almost 200 people to take care of.Much more responsibility. You talk about salary increasing by 2x. you must be very junior in the police,I took a major pay cut to be a jet FO. I think you are doing the right thing but go into it with your eyes open-this is not utopia it is marginally better than the 'old bill' and enjoy your career

[jetjockey737]

Dougthehead,
I couldnt agree with you more. It amazes me to hear people talk so positively about this 'incredible rostering protocol'. 5/2/5/4 or 6/3 it doesnt really make any differance....apart from i now have less leave and a total inability to request a day off.

I have never worked harder, I have never been more knackered...and please dont start spouting all the usual B******S about scientific studies. How can a study done in the winter, with crews from other bases covering the study bases, be subjective??

I am so tempted to go on to a flexible roster but apparently the FTL alleviation still applies. So basically they could do what the hell they wanted to me, and I really dont trust them not to take take the michael!

The study should have been carried out by an independant, well respected group. NOT by someone carrying out a project for their GCSE in sociology or whatever it was he was doing.

Ah well better go, I am so full of energy after 5 earlies that I must crack on with a few jobs around the house. Same as tomorrow when I wake up at 3.30am on my first day off and spend the remainder of the day walking around like a zombie.

[Doug the Head]

Jetjockey737, perhaps you should go on a flexible roster and try to make a deal with rostering?

The problem is that some people like earlies, some people prefer lates, while others prefer the old 6/3.

It´s impossible for rostering to accommodate all those requests on an individual basis, but why not let a computer ´listen´ to the inputs from the ´number one asset?´

With the current CAA alleviation allowing more earlies, everybody should be able to create their own lifestyle, according to their own ´scientific study´ and needs. Personally, I love earlies and in my old company I always requested earlies through a preferential bidding system. If I needed a particular day off, I would also bid for that. If I liked a 6/3 lifestyle I could bit accordingly, or bid for weekends off.

The system would give every crew member a fixed amount of ´credit points´ and you could distribute those points, depending on the importance you give to a particular request. For example, suppose it’s your best mate´s wedding and you really really really need to have that day off. In that case you would allocate a lot of points for that particular day. Of course the downside is that that particular month, you have less points available to create other preferences, but at least you have more control over your schedule instead of the current or past ´written in stone´ schedules of 5-2-5-4 or 6/3.

Most people in my old company were very happy with this system and it creates a substantial savings as the company can save money on people in the rostering department.

The current 5-2-5-4 is again a ´quick fix´ solution which does nothing about the fundamental problem: lot´s of people in this industry have lot´s of different lifestyles. It´s NOT a 9 to 5 job.

With an airline with more than 100 aircraft and big Pan-European ambitions, maybe it’s about time to step into the 21st century and automate the rostering?

[RAT 5]

JJ737 & Dougie,

I couldn't agree more. To Big T, I do not advocate that the best answer is 4/4 for flight crew. If management insist on a fixed pattern, then this is better than 6/3 or 5/3 etc etc. Even the managemnent pilots agree that you are tired on day 5. However, they, probably, only fly occasional blocks of 5 days, not repeatably. So if you are tired at the end of the first block, after 1 month you are knackered, and the family is royally hacked off with your life style.

As Dougie says, fixed rosters are not necessary, and in most world airlines don't exist. They gives reduced flexibility to both crews & crewing, in an industry where flexibility is the buzz word; but then we all know from vast experience that flexibility operates in a one way street.

The simple fact remains that with efficient rostering, which = productivity, the budgeted amount of work can be achieved in 180 duty days, including SBY. Why then must you be on duty for 232 days pa. This is only because FTL's allow this limit. We all know what would happen if the limit would be raised, e.g Italy. The limits are being used as targets, which was never the intention. Surely the correct attitude is to maximise productivity, and once that productivity has been achieved then the job is done and any remaining time is free.
Why oh why do rosterers have the attitude that duty time = productivity and therefore if you have only the minimum days off you must be producing? This is total nonsense. What is the point of having twice or three time the number of crews on SBY just so they are logged as being on duty? Or going to work to produce 3 hours of revenue flying. Utter rubbish.

To BIg T. the 4/4 need not infringe the 18/34 guideline as day 2 or 3 could be SBY, and therefore not planned to be in this period. But isn't it strange that rosteres say this 'guideline' should not be infringed, when all the other guidelines are ignored.

Quick fixing is a waste of time, as are the same roster patterns for different operations. LoCo, charter, long-haul, short-haul; all different. Each should apply a common sense pattern, mutually agreed, to suit their own paticulars. It ain't rocket science, it is an attitude problem that is easily solved if management wanted to. There-in lies the crux; they don't want to. But sure as gravity is more certain than most things it is going to bite them very hard one day. You have to be blind to not to see the gap widening between ground based jobs and airborne T's & C's; and it ain't the airborne ones improving. The turn over in C/A's is frightening.
I watch with horror the conditions under which Loco C/A's work, for 12 hours non-stop, 5 days consecutively, compared to anyone else on the ground.
When is someone going to be honest and start up "Sweat shop Airlines"? The complete b@#$%^ks written in recruitment adverts is scandalous and an abuse of the very intelligence they demand of the applicant.

All the new reality TV shows, about good/bad business practices; one of those let lose inside an airline would be fantastic and a real eye-opener for the public.

I wonder what a poll of the senior members of the profession, pilots and C/A's, would turn up if asked whether they would recommend their own role as a profession to a school leaver. Mm?

[Big Tudor]

Rat 5

In fairness, I think most rosterers would agree with your comments. If a crew member is happy then it makes everybodies lives so much easier, and they are more likely to be willing to accept out of the ordinary changes when they come along. The problem comes with managment perception of productivity. Excessive days off on a roster are looked upon with with a very high degree of dislike by senior managers. It gives the impression of having too much time off. A lot of rosterers end up putting crew on standbys, even though they know they are worthless (the standby not the crew), purely to give the impression that the crew are busy.

The other problems arise from flight schedules. What may look, at first glance, to be a perfectly logical sequence of duties, may be totally unsuitable because of min rest, consecutive earlies or lates, etc. CAP371 does not lend itself to logical patterns of work or to realistic body clock phases. Why is the body able to conduct a 14 hour FDP at 08:00 local yet can only do a 13 hour FDP at 07:58?

The only sensible approach would be to allow individual crew members to have high degrees of input into what patterns they want to work. All the discussions that have taken place have highlighted the fact that no two people will like the same type of work. Some prefer earlies, some prefer lates, some prefer long blocks of work and days off, some prefer shorter periods with fewer days off. Until the industry as a whole realises that CAP371 does more to impede sensible rostering than to promote it, then we are going to be stuck with only pleasing some of the people some of the time.

[Doug the Head]

Until the industry as a whole realises that CAP371 does more to impede sensible rostering than to promote it, then we are going to be stuck with only pleasing some of the people some of the time.

Thank you Big Tudor, that was going to be point number 4 of the problems which stand in the way for a better roster: the totally outdated and antiquated CAP371 rules from the CAA. I hope it won´t take an accident for the CAA to realise that this is obviously not the way forward and that a totally new approach is due...

[RAT 5]

Gentlemen,

I concurr, completely.
How is the industry going to overcome this dilema? There appears to be little or no action from any of the unions/delegations. What do you propose; because this is the first time I've heard violent agreement between flight crew & rosterers. Although to be fair; rosterers do what they are told to by their managers, who we have said before are the root of the problem.

[Big Tudor]

How is the industry going to overcome this dilema?

The short answer (IMHO) is it can't. BALPA have fought themselves into a corner by lauding the merits of CAP371 in the argument against Sub Part Q. It would be a serious contradiction if they now started a campaign to have CAP371 replaced on the grounds that it is inadequate.
The document is the CAA's baby so they are unlikely to make any major alterations to it, let lone start from scratch. The latest amendments have taken years to bring into force, and even then they were watered down from the original proposals.
My personal view (for what it is worth) is that the only way we will see a major alteration in the flight and duty time regulations in this country is with the introduction of Sub Part Q. Unfortunately from a crew point of view, it will take a serious amount of negotiation and debate to persuade airline senior management (and some pilots) that there is a more effective and sensible way to schedule aircrew. The mentality of CAP371 is deeply entrenched in the minds of many aviation people in this country.

Edited to add;

I realise that this is taking the thread off track somewhat, however the debate seems to be heading more towards what is appropriate scheduling practices. The general consensus seems to be coming reound to the fact that it is very difficult to lay down generic restrictions that will suit everybody. The resolution could be relaxation of the rules to allow for more fluidity in scheduling, however this would require a massive leap of faith on all sides. i honestly don't believe that aircrew/management relationships have enough trust to allow this to take place.

[Yarpy]

The document is the CAA's baby so they are unlikely to make any major alterations to it, let lone start from scratch.

Er, Yes. If only the Doctors at the CAA. who doubtless fully understand the problems of CAP 371, would take up the mantle.

However, with such cushy jobs at the Belgrano they are unlikely to take up the mantle on the pilots behalf.

You might call me a cynic but this was a view expressed to me by an Ops Inspector . . .

[Banzai Eagle]

Am i correct in saying that Jar Ops Sub Part Q FTL has no reference to consecutive early / late duties?. Get rid of that, by all means have a scheduling agreement sitting inside it and gives crews flexibility to choose.