Pass on your experience - PLEASE!
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Save our Industry!
Hello all,
I have been compelled to put finger to keyboard after recently reading/experiencing what I can only describe as the degredation of not only terms and conditions but Flight Safety too.
What has happened to our Industry?
Well, there are many factors, and I'm not about to discuss them all here, I'll leave that to you - but what I can offer is hopefully an open and frank debate/discussion. After reading the BALPA article headed "There may be trouble ahead" it is plain and obvious we and our future collegues are in deep trouble.
Some of my thoughts for why we have steadily slid down the slippery slope of distruction are as follows:
Would you be happy putting your family on an aircraft with a seasonal Summer Captain who has been called out in Winter as crewing have no-one else, sat next to a 400hr F/O who's parents have paid for him to fly airoplanes?????
ALL MEDIA PEOPLE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE SEE AND DOCUMENT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!!!!!!
THE WAY THIS INDUSTRY IS GOING WILL HAVE DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE!
I have been compelled to put finger to keyboard after recently reading/experiencing what I can only describe as the degredation of not only terms and conditions but Flight Safety too.
What has happened to our Industry?
Well, there are many factors, and I'm not about to discuss them all here, I'll leave that to you - but what I can offer is hopefully an open and frank debate/discussion. After reading the BALPA article headed "There may be trouble ahead" it is plain and obvious we and our future collegues are in deep trouble.
Some of my thoughts for why we have steadily slid down the slippery slope of distruction are as follows:
- Ryanair - Forever looking at driving the cost of air travel down, consequently employees (one of the biggest cost bases) terms/conditions/wages too. This type of model has been adopted by other airlines to maximise profits whilst minimising safety!
- Climate driven - 9/11, recession, they have all played their role in this cyclic industry.
- Greedy Fatcats - You can't knock someone for making a quick buck or two from a situation, but what has happened to our industry is sickening. Training organisations promising the Earth to nieve students has spued out hundreds of dissapointed CPL/IR qualified pilots. There now lies a situation where students qualifying are massively in debt to the tune of over £100,000!!!!!! Training Organisations have promised the Earth and delivered the moon. Students willing to pay £1000's for type rating's and now line training is not only damaging, but in some cases a danger to the public. We have unemployed experienced Pilots on the dole in the UK who can't get a job as they don't offer a profit at the training stage to training organisations and some Airilines alike.
- Greedy Airline Bosses - have watched what has happened with gleeful delight. Pilots out of work, students willing to pay for nothing and most of all profiteering from their own employees, ironically the very people who made the money in the first instance!
Would you be happy putting your family on an aircraft with a seasonal Summer Captain who has been called out in Winter as crewing have no-one else, sat next to a 400hr F/O who's parents have paid for him to fly airoplanes?????
ALL MEDIA PEOPLE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE SEE AND DOCUMENT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!!!!!!
THE WAY THIS INDUSTRY IS GOING WILL HAVE DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE!
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Pass on your experience - PLEASE!
Calling all experienced Pilots!!!
Please use this thread to increase the knowledge base of all Pilots out there. As the terms and conditions of ALL flight crew decrease, the more are retiring and leaving this Industry forever, taking with them some of the best experience ever to have flown.......
Therfore, many new commanders may have only flown in the RHS for as little as 3 years. In those 3 years they may have only flown and discussed situations with a truely experinced Captain a handful of times. Not ideal I think all will agree (blame O'leary if you ask me, but that's another argument all together!).
So, if you can give us some constructive useful advice, I'm sure all would benefit. Such experience could be anything from lightning strikes to emergency evacuations. Please try to include your thought processes and outside factors that may have influenced your decisions - maybe even outside of your airlines SOP's.
Please guys, your experience is needed. We are fast becoming an Industry of paying pilots, something that scares the living daylights out of me. We must try by every means possible to pass on our experiences and knowledge so the future Captains can draw on every bit of advice should they so need to.
Many thanks in the name of Flight Safety!
Please use this thread to increase the knowledge base of all Pilots out there. As the terms and conditions of ALL flight crew decrease, the more are retiring and leaving this Industry forever, taking with them some of the best experience ever to have flown.......
Therfore, many new commanders may have only flown in the RHS for as little as 3 years. In those 3 years they may have only flown and discussed situations with a truely experinced Captain a handful of times. Not ideal I think all will agree (blame O'leary if you ask me, but that's another argument all together!).
So, if you can give us some constructive useful advice, I'm sure all would benefit. Such experience could be anything from lightning strikes to emergency evacuations. Please try to include your thought processes and outside factors that may have influenced your decisions - maybe even outside of your airlines SOP's.
Please guys, your experience is needed. We are fast becoming an Industry of paying pilots, something that scares the living daylights out of me. We must try by every means possible to pass on our experiences and knowledge so the future Captains can draw on every bit of advice should they so need to.
Many thanks in the name of Flight Safety!
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Couldn't agree more. The latest issue of the LOG makes for depressing reading.
Unfortunately as long as there are little kiddies willing (or parents willing) to pay thousands to play at being pilot, there will always be companies happy to let them. What is needed is legislation to stamp on this before there is a fatal accident. This has already been happening in the US since the icing incident, where such schemes are only available to those with more than 1500 hours. Ideally, airlines would recruit a mixture at the regional end of the market, some experienced, some less so and some at the start of their careers so that the newly qualified have a chance to enter the industry and work their way up. Civil aviation worked like this for many years and was a lot better and safer for it. I realise that the 200 hour wannabees with expectations of a heavy jet command before the age of 30 are going to be against this, but driving own conditions or worse a series of incidents and accidents could destroy public confidence and drive airlines to the wall. That means a lot less opportunity for everyone.
This business needs to take a deep breath and look at what it is doing to itself before it is too late.
Shooting a few accountants pour encourager les autres wouldn't hurt either.
Unfortunately as long as there are little kiddies willing (or parents willing) to pay thousands to play at being pilot, there will always be companies happy to let them. What is needed is legislation to stamp on this before there is a fatal accident. This has already been happening in the US since the icing incident, where such schemes are only available to those with more than 1500 hours. Ideally, airlines would recruit a mixture at the regional end of the market, some experienced, some less so and some at the start of their careers so that the newly qualified have a chance to enter the industry and work their way up. Civil aviation worked like this for many years and was a lot better and safer for it. I realise that the 200 hour wannabees with expectations of a heavy jet command before the age of 30 are going to be against this, but driving own conditions or worse a series of incidents and accidents could destroy public confidence and drive airlines to the wall. That means a lot less opportunity for everyone.
This business needs to take a deep breath and look at what it is doing to itself before it is too late.
Shooting a few accountants pour encourager les autres wouldn't hurt either.
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UNITE!
NOTHING CAN BE DONE UNLESS WE DO IT TOGETHER
We have not been divided. But they have united (the whole industry along with the authorities) and are destroying us to increase their profits.
All the bad things that are happening to us occur because they are legal.
Laws are made by all european countries obeying the industry desires and these are the results.
THEREFORE WE NEED A EUROPEAN PILOT UNION, a real one, an effective one to start fixing things.
Now, we are divided because why should pilots from the UK be united with greek, french, german or italian pilots? So they fight and defeat us one by one, and in the end even the strongest fall. Pilot union after pilot union find themselves unable to do anything.
We are defensless!
I would like to ask something to you all:
Why can't european pilots force the authorities to change things the same as the french truck drivers do?
Answer: we are not united, we don't have an effective pilot union.
I say force them because it is the only way. They will give nothing willingly! We have to take it.
It is difficult but it is simple:
All the pilots folowing a common strategy. All the pilots going to the streets, to the airports, and demonstrating. All the pilots going to strike.
All with a single voice.
Al these change things. Anything else do not. The situation has departed too far from the equilibrium for "reasonable" measures. Action is needed, urgently, to change things.
We have the power to do it. An inmense power. The power of collapsing the european skies any time we want. Only if we act together. They will do anything to prevent us from uniting because they know it.
Now: how can we do it?
how do we become a united voice, a united force they will have to deal with wether they like it or not?
We have not been divided. But they have united (the whole industry along with the authorities) and are destroying us to increase their profits.
All the bad things that are happening to us occur because they are legal.
Laws are made by all european countries obeying the industry desires and these are the results.
THEREFORE WE NEED A EUROPEAN PILOT UNION, a real one, an effective one to start fixing things.
Now, we are divided because why should pilots from the UK be united with greek, french, german or italian pilots? So they fight and defeat us one by one, and in the end even the strongest fall. Pilot union after pilot union find themselves unable to do anything.
We are defensless!
I would like to ask something to you all:
Why can't european pilots force the authorities to change things the same as the french truck drivers do?
Answer: we are not united, we don't have an effective pilot union.
I say force them because it is the only way. They will give nothing willingly! We have to take it.
It is difficult but it is simple:
All the pilots folowing a common strategy. All the pilots going to the streets, to the airports, and demonstrating. All the pilots going to strike.
All with a single voice.
Al these change things. Anything else do not. The situation has departed too far from the equilibrium for "reasonable" measures. Action is needed, urgently, to change things.
We have the power to do it. An inmense power. The power of collapsing the european skies any time we want. Only if we act together. They will do anything to prevent us from uniting because they know it.
Now: how can we do it?
how do we become a united voice, a united force they will have to deal with wether they like it or not?
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On the face of it I thought this topic thread was going to be a sensible discussion about what was written in the Log this month and its applicability to all pilots of all experience levels. Instead its just became disappointly clear that its just another thread where people moan about inexperienced pilots flying jets.
Microburst you talk of solidarity amongst pilots but in supporting this thread you do not demonstrate it. The problems with the industry are not caused by inexperienced pilots putting themselves on the line to meet their dream its the fault of management who encourage these routes to happen.
I finished my frozen ATPL a year last march and considered taking an FI rating but quite frankly the sums didn't add up. The old and good route of taking an FI rating, flying turbo prop and then making it onto Jet many hrs later has gone. I would of loved to of done it but the years of living on rice and selling my teeth just didn't seem worth it.
I have huge repect for the pilots at Monarch who stood up against the miss treatment of junior FO's by management. I think we could all learn from this example instead of bickering amongst ourselves.
Microburst you talk of solidarity amongst pilots but in supporting this thread you do not demonstrate it. The problems with the industry are not caused by inexperienced pilots putting themselves on the line to meet their dream its the fault of management who encourage these routes to happen.
I finished my frozen ATPL a year last march and considered taking an FI rating but quite frankly the sums didn't add up. The old and good route of taking an FI rating, flying turbo prop and then making it onto Jet many hrs later has gone. I would of loved to of done it but the years of living on rice and selling my teeth just didn't seem worth it.
I have huge repect for the pilots at Monarch who stood up against the miss treatment of junior FO's by management. I think we could all learn from this example instead of bickering amongst ourselves.
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edmo
I don't think this thread was intended to bash newbies, If anything highlight the plight of what the Industry now dictates. It isn't ideal, and if you read the BALPA article you would see why!!!
I can't believe what is happening to this Industry. It is fast becoming a farce!
When I decided to end a 10 year Engineering carreer to fly, it was on the belief it would be of a benefit to me and my family - both financially and lifestyle. Alas, my dream has not been realised. I earn less now than I did 10 years ago. I have 3000 hrs, all commercial, half 737. I still owe money for training six years into commercial flying, further reducing my take home pay!
It's not just about the money, it's all the ruthless slashing of terms and conditions. In my company you can't even get a good staff travel deal, let alone a two weeks off work during the months of April to October!!!
My advice to anyone seriously thinking of joining this Industry is think LONG and HARD before jumping, you will wind up with a HUGE debt and probably not a good renumeration at the end of it if your lucky enough to get a job that is......
SAFETY is the biggest concern. People paying to fly, unhappy fatigued crews, Summer commands, illegal duties and the list goes on. If joe public new half of what we as pilots are expected to put up with they wouldn't fly at all.
Sadly, as with most things in life, it will take an accident for the powers that be to sit up and listen, by then it will be too late for some souls.
In the words of a Scottish comedian "we're all doomed!"......
I don't think this thread was intended to bash newbies, If anything highlight the plight of what the Industry now dictates. It isn't ideal, and if you read the BALPA article you would see why!!!
I can't believe what is happening to this Industry. It is fast becoming a farce!
When I decided to end a 10 year Engineering carreer to fly, it was on the belief it would be of a benefit to me and my family - both financially and lifestyle. Alas, my dream has not been realised. I earn less now than I did 10 years ago. I have 3000 hrs, all commercial, half 737. I still owe money for training six years into commercial flying, further reducing my take home pay!
It's not just about the money, it's all the ruthless slashing of terms and conditions. In my company you can't even get a good staff travel deal, let alone a two weeks off work during the months of April to October!!!
My advice to anyone seriously thinking of joining this Industry is think LONG and HARD before jumping, you will wind up with a HUGE debt and probably not a good renumeration at the end of it if your lucky enough to get a job that is......
SAFETY is the biggest concern. People paying to fly, unhappy fatigued crews, Summer commands, illegal duties and the list goes on. If joe public new half of what we as pilots are expected to put up with they wouldn't fly at all.
Sadly, as with most things in life, it will take an accident for the powers that be to sit up and listen, by then it will be too late for some souls.
In the words of a Scottish comedian "we're all doomed!"......
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SAFETY is the biggest concern. People paying to fly, unhappy fatigued crews, Summer commands, illegal duties and the list goes on. If joe public new half of what we as pilots are expected to put up with they wouldn't fly at all.
And, regarding 'safety'...speak for yourself.
Nothing wrong with our companies safety..IF the Commander doesn't like what he sees, he does something about it...and no complaints from the head shed.
Of course, we are a small charter company...most likely different at large carriers.
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Nothing in this industry will change until we have a few hull losses, the CAA are ineffective and rely on airlines own self regulation.
Pay to fly coupled with SSTR's are driving down both experience and standards. CRM itself in this happy clappy world of dont offend anyone is going to lead eventually to a big crash. New F/O's are being told they have equal standing to the skipper and from day one aren't there to learn but are just counting down the time to a perceived given right to the left hand seat. Everyone including the cabin crew now think they are in charge! That of course is until it all starts to go wrong and then they run for cover.
When it does eventually happen I have the feeling it will be the insurance companies that dictate the experience of those occupying both the left and right hand seat.
Pay to fly coupled with SSTR's are driving down both experience and standards. CRM itself in this happy clappy world of dont offend anyone is going to lead eventually to a big crash. New F/O's are being told they have equal standing to the skipper and from day one aren't there to learn but are just counting down the time to a perceived given right to the left hand seat. Everyone including the cabin crew now think they are in charge! That of course is until it all starts to go wrong and then they run for cover.
When it does eventually happen I have the feeling it will be the insurance companies that dictate the experience of those occupying both the left and right hand seat.
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Let's not wait for the hull losses, gentlemen
I am not against newbies, as such. I was a newbie myself, not long ago.
I am against the everyday worsening situation that professional pilots are facing.
It happens that the non-restricted access to the profession is what is destroying it.
Today, money is the only requisite to become an airline pilot. No longer talent, career, experience or academical background. Just money.
Today, a complete idiot can become an airline pilot. Just the same as Forrest Gump went to the University because he run like the wind, any idiot can become an airline pilot if he spends money as quickly as Forrest ran.
The result is tens of thousands of people with frozen ATPL licenses trying to buy a job, and the price of it rises and rises...
As a first emergency measure to stop the bleeding from the injury we are suffering, I would propose that Type rating courses can only be given to airline pilots with a contract. No more self-sponsor. That alone would help a lot.
In this manner, the airlines would have to select the most talented and experienced non-type rated pilots, and not those who have the TR. And those who were not hired by an airline would not have to spend the money they don't have for nothing. How many type rated, non hired pilots are out there?
The hired ones would be bonded to the airline, of course.
Everyone happy:
- the hired ones because they have been hired, and don't pay TR
- the non hired ones because they haven't paid a TR and can wait for another opportunity
- the airlines because they have good pilots, who will pay the TR if they leave the job too soon.
Well, the TRTOs not so happy. But who cares?
Gentelmen, let's not wait till having hull losses. It is useless, by the way. The industry and the media (they sleep together) can cope with that easily.
The situation in the USA with the icing accident would not be the same if Captain Sully hadn't become a hero first.
We need more positive things, not negative ones. We need union and united action. No more waiting. Let's set goals.
There is an opportunity now, with the new duty time regulations. Let's force them to change things. It will be a first victory. The one we need to realise how powerful we can be. Inmensely powerful!
I am against the everyday worsening situation that professional pilots are facing.
It happens that the non-restricted access to the profession is what is destroying it.
Today, money is the only requisite to become an airline pilot. No longer talent, career, experience or academical background. Just money.
Today, a complete idiot can become an airline pilot. Just the same as Forrest Gump went to the University because he run like the wind, any idiot can become an airline pilot if he spends money as quickly as Forrest ran.
The result is tens of thousands of people with frozen ATPL licenses trying to buy a job, and the price of it rises and rises...
As a first emergency measure to stop the bleeding from the injury we are suffering, I would propose that Type rating courses can only be given to airline pilots with a contract. No more self-sponsor. That alone would help a lot.
In this manner, the airlines would have to select the most talented and experienced non-type rated pilots, and not those who have the TR. And those who were not hired by an airline would not have to spend the money they don't have for nothing. How many type rated, non hired pilots are out there?
The hired ones would be bonded to the airline, of course.
Everyone happy:
- the hired ones because they have been hired, and don't pay TR
- the non hired ones because they haven't paid a TR and can wait for another opportunity
- the airlines because they have good pilots, who will pay the TR if they leave the job too soon.
Well, the TRTOs not so happy. But who cares?
Gentelmen, let's not wait till having hull losses. It is useless, by the way. The industry and the media (they sleep together) can cope with that easily.
The situation in the USA with the icing accident would not be the same if Captain Sully hadn't become a hero first.
We need more positive things, not negative ones. We need union and united action. No more waiting. Let's set goals.
There is an opportunity now, with the new duty time regulations. Let's force them to change things. It will be a first victory. The one we need to realise how powerful we can be. Inmensely powerful!
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Microburst, I like your energy and hopefully it'll morph into action. This is what we are doing in Europe:European Cockpit Association (ECA) - eurocockpit.be
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Thank you for the link
I confess I know little about you. I hope I will know more and more, soon. I will be glad to join you.
I would have gone to the action day with my mates if I had been there.
More action is needed, till the media gives the attention we need.
This fatigue problem is important and we should win the match easily. If we can't, it is very difficult that we solve the other serious problems we are suffering. If we can, we will realise how strong we are.
And I think... Yes, we can! (how original)
I confess I know little about you. I hope I will know more and more, soon. I will be glad to join you.
I would have gone to the action day with my mates if I had been there.
More action is needed, till the media gives the attention we need.
This fatigue problem is important and we should win the match easily. If we can't, it is very difficult that we solve the other serious problems we are suffering. If we can, we will realise how strong we are.
And I think... Yes, we can! (how original)
