Two points I would like to make
 

1. The problem with most increases in efficiency is that it is quickly matched by your competitors too so what really happens is that the company profits don't change significantly. This has unfortunately been the trend over the past 20 years or so. There was a time when people were talking in terms of new technology delivering more leisure time for workers and a better working environment, but sadly despite huge increases in efficiency all that seems to have happened is that we're all working longer hours, under worse conditions and the only people who have shown big salary rises are the Captains of industry and Directors who vote in each others pay! For most worker bees (cabin crew, pilots, middle managers, check in staff etc) their pay has either stagnated or fallen in real terms. In the case of raising FTL's to 1000 hours per year across the board if BA implement it, so will Easyjet, Ryanair, Flybe etc etc and the net result will be more tired pilots and probably more accidents but no greater profits for BA or any other airline.

2. Secondly I would like to share my perspective having been both an airline manager and then changed career to become a pilot (though not for BA). I'm afraid that when working office hours I simply never ever felt tired (unless I had burnt the candle at both ends the night before!) and I was rarely ever in a situation where I was making very rapid decisions that required me to assimilate large amounts of information, process them and act in real time. Most complex decisions in the office were carefully considered with ample time for discussions with colleagues. Most decisions made in the office could be easily reversed too, not the case flying an airliner. I'm afraid I have more frequently felt tired at the controls since becoming a pilot and have relied on coffee etc to keep me sharp simply because constantly moving my sleep cycle around - getting up at 4am, then perhaps working the next day until 11pm etc means I rarely get a quality 8 hrs sleep.

Do we get rest-breaks like truck and train drivers? - No, today as an example I flew 4 sectors of around 1hr to 1hr 15 mins each so no sooner had you climbed up, done some fuel checks, got wx for destination, briefed the approach, set up for landing then you were back into the thick of an approach again. There was no 'quiet time' during the cruise on any of the sectors. All turnarounds were 30 mins which was barely enough time to set up for the next flight. Pee breaks had to be done after passenger boarding when all the other tasks had been completed and the crew food was as usual not nutritious or healthy. It was an 8 hour shift with no break, 4 flights, lousy food and after canvassing the crew - we had all got up at 4am having had between 5 and 6 hours sleep.

The notion that the regulations could be loosened further without compromising safety is frankly laughable. You wouldn't want a truck driver doing 8 hour shifts on 6 hours sleep without a rest stop so why expect it of airline pilots?

Desk pilot, Totaly agree with you. Although the vast majority of the public think they fly themselves these days, and pilots just sit and read the paper!

As for scheduling agreements, they do not form part of your contract! They are a schedule of the contract! A sneaky way that allows it to be changed without consultation in a non unionised airline. In a unionised airline a change needs to be negotiated with the recognised union. So your scheduling agreement is only safe if you have a determined union and everyone is prepared to back them!!

Bonus Time
 

Desk-pilot, you ask " You wouldn't want a truck driver doing 8 hour shifts on 6 hours sleep without a rest stop so why expect it of airline pilots? "

Answer: So that Watersidewonker (did I spell that correctly?) and his ilk can get a bigger bonus.

FERetd, without a management team, you wouldn't be taking to the sky. Bonuses are generally a performance sweetener to top up a generally low retention salary.
Desk-pilot I applaud your calm mannered synopsis of the aviation industry and agree with all points raised. Unfortunately legacy carriers are at a huge disadvantage to their competitors, be it low cost carriers or young longhaul upstarts such as EK. As our cost base is so high and revenue per flight is roughly comparable, our only hope is driving through change in order to survive.
The UK is not going to implement FTL increase so whilst our EU competitors will gain from this, it's imperative we find a way of matching their cost reduction.
Believe me, there is a lot of slack in the system.

I am amazed this thred has got to page three.

For once I would agree, there is alot of slack at Waterside, as was seen at the last cull, 400+ managers with forced redundancy and no-one, absoloutely no-one noticed.

Plenty of slack.

If WW actually worked there! :ugh:

Pilots work to Scheme, scheme will only be changed through consultive negotiation, not BASSA hammer tactics.

De j'a poo
 

Watersidewonker Quote:- "FERetd, without a management team, you wouldn't be taking to the sky. Bonuses are generally a performance sweetener to top up a generally low retention salary."

This is seriously a case of "De j'a poo" - I have a feeling that I've heard that cr*p somewhere before.

I retired five years ago and "no longer take to the sky". But I have been around long enough to see how a rewarding career is turned into a job - even by a company that makes good profits. And in those times of good profits the management take their bonuses and hand out a token gesture to their staff (aircrew and office workers). I've heard all about "We have to work smarter - not harder" - yeah right!!

"FERetd, without a management team, you wouldn't be taking to the sky."

I would counter, unless we take to the sky, managers would have nothing to "manage". Management jobs are always the first to go in hard times. Seen it happen time and time again during tough trading.

The well oiled wheel just keeps turning.....with fewer managers.

I think that is putting too much credibility on EASA to be honest.

How can they be proposing to increase the limits to 1,000 from 900 if they had much clue, for a start? Don't they know how knackering it is to work close to 900 hours under the Subpart Q already? Perhaps it's not so bad if they are long haul but for those that are most likely to work you right up to the limit, like the low cost carriers, 1,000 hours would result in alarming level of fatigue. 900 is bad enough already and so many fit and healthy 30 year olds are coming down with excessive level of fatigue.

And think about the training captains etc - how about if they work 1,000 hour a year with their increased workload? Horrifying, to put it simply.

I understand your concerns but when other parts of the business have had to make cost savings it's only fair we adapt to keep pace with our competitors.

What I'd like to do to people like you is put you in an Airbus, 10 mile finals on Lisbon runway 03, winds 330/33 G38, heavy rain, low level turbulence, winds shearing and all on day 5 of earlies having been up at 0350 every morning. If you had the balls, skill and experience to land it I'd like to ask you how you'd feel about doing it all again tomorrow just so some unprofessional, unskilled, unqualified, ill informed manager can get a bonus.

Here's an example:


As for the people working in other parts of the business, I presume youre talking about the managers or sales and marketing team - they aren't highly responsible, skilled in a highly practical way and highly qualified like a pilot. If they're tired the loss is small.

You're the hypocrite.

BlackandBrown i do find your comments quite disturbing considering your training entails situations you come across from time to time. I feel if you are unable to deal with such situations perhaps a change of occupation should be considered. If correct rest is observed as regulated by the authorities then safety should never be compromised but when you bring in other factors such as bunching of work and commuting the fine line can lead to mistakes.

Waterside:

I don't quite follow your points at all. Blackandbrown makes an excellent summary of what this job involves (especially in a UK winter!) and yet you then seem to insist that he can't cope with it?

I'd point to the fact that I've just come back off a duty now, and I'm having another 6 day week with 2 days off before going back to work again (the girlfriend has already asked me if she'll ever see me again!) - I've spent 4 days of the week getting up stupidly early, with the earliest alarm clock at 2:30am and now I'm onto a late pattern, which means that I'm finishing at 11:00-11:30 at night. So, in the space of these few days, I've had to totally reverse my bodyclock while still working. Put that in with some of the long duty days that we do (some are up to 11 hours and 30 minutes already!) and it doesn't take a genius to work out that tiredness is going to accumulate at a really rapid rate. If I take how I am at the start of a week at the moment, compared to where I am at the end of the week - my flying at the end of the week is a lot less consistent, I make silly mistakes that are totally avoidable and invariably, it will be on the last day of the week when a situation arises that requires a thought process... like a go around due to the airport closing.

Now, if I'm that worn out in the first place, imagine that the duty I've just done had been increased by a factor of whatever percent EASA are advocating...

A simple question of maths means that what would normally be a situation that I could manage well enough, could very soon become a dangerous situation.

At the end of the day, safety can have no comprimise. And middle level management will only realise this when it's far too late. And I bet that all of the bonuses for "excellent performance" will dry up too - along with the whole operations of the airline.

I do my job with the aim of getting from A to B, taking a plane load of passengers, and doing it safely while always considering operational circumstances. Something that every pilot out there would agree with and something that is enscribed into every professional pilot from day 1 of training. These rules will destroy this element. You probably think we sit there fat, dumb and happy... Just consider this for two minutes: when the weather is bad (as in the video from Black and Brown), you've had a crap sleep, your girlfriend is threatening to leave you as you haven't seen them in god knows how long, and you're struggling to make ends meet this month as several large bills came along all at once, how do you think you'd feel?

Come and follow us in our jobs for a week. I dare you. And then we'll see who deserves the bonuses... and it isn't those who sit there and think up new ways to reap the crop of Human Resources.

It's just a matter of time until the UK has a Colgan style accident. I am sure managers like WW will have made sure their own arses are nice and covered though.

What this thread shows though is that no matter the colour of that tail fin, the management intent is the same. It just makes me realise that as a pilot work force we really need to be united to deal with this. Reading the balpa forum I think this is slowly beginning to happen. Lets hope it takes effect before another Colgan.

WW

In other words: " We want to be able to roster you to EASA limits, (which of course must be safe) but that pesky thing called Bidline is getting in the way...................."

Moving on :oh: I'm glad you have concerns about crew members "bunching work" and I take it you've already expressed concerns up the management chain about the company's longstanding practice of constructing eastern seaboard "back to backs" for our cabin crew colleagues. For the benefit of the non BA readers that's a trip construction along the lines of LHR-JFK-LHR, night off in London, then LHR-BOS-LHR. That certainly looks like a "bunching of work" to me.

Wiggy,

Why bother. WW is no more a manager that Ghengis Khan was a member of the peace corps.

All he's doing is regurgitating all of the lines that were used on the Cabin Crew forum to shoot down his ill thought out ramblings during the CC dispute which, of course, in WW world they won an outstanding victory. It just goes to show his percieved viewpoint.

Those who actually understand the EASA principles and are aware that they are 'broad brushing' thus encompassing better and worse conditions also understand that even EASA have admitted that they have no basis in scientific fact and need re-working. EASA was pushed to a deadline and, as with all ill informed, un-elected, eurocratic organisations, just pushed whatever they had on Powerpoint out of the door.

For those of us working in companies where safety is crucial and critical there are schemes in place to ensure compliance with scientifically proven fatigue management systems. WW wants to peddle these as being as useless as the BASSA 'gentlemens agreements' were during the CC dispute, the only fly in his imaginary managers ointment is that the scheme is written into the pilots ratified MOA and also monitored and approved by the CAA.

By pushing for scientific clarification of the EASA regulations, hopefully, we will be able to achieve a good standard to which we have been operating for years for the those of the European piloting community who have not benefitted from such protections.

Those of us who work the frontline, encountering adverse weather again and again around the globe after hours of flying covering a multitude of timezones and irregular sleep patterns know the inherent risks involved in our job and the associated responsibilities that go with it. Parasite managers who claim they 'know better' are generally the first ones out of the door when cost cutting is required. 400 managers out at BA? No-one, but no-one even noticed. Q.E.D.

Whilst it is a good discussion to have, don't feed the troll.

Well said wirbelsturm...although not BA, I'm a pilot and hold a management posting...the "simplistic rambles" from WW hold no realistic weight, relevant in terms of required economic change, maybe - legacy cost levels seem to be sustainable in Gulf states only...

Troll - almost certainly...

Good post chaps! I have come to the conclusion that he is actually BA management. If you look at what WW has achieved over the last 7 years you can begin to see why.

WW is worse than a troll, he or she is truly a parasite. But I thank him or her for creating this thread so that I can tell his or her kind what I feel about them.

Busta :D:D

Spot on Busta - "Seagull" Management - my previous company was Trafalgar Square then!!! - a sad fact when working with this level of quality of management; you are stuck with them! Usually because of previous history/reputation and almost certainly no-one else will employ them!

But their time is limited!

I really don't think that many educated folk have an issue with the common theme running through many of the postings - self preservation. Of course it's a natural instinct and we all have it, just some more than others - we are all human after all!
The point I'm stressing is don't get too selfish, by putting emphasis on the word self. In order to protect your jobs, you need to play your part in a cost reduction programme. If IAG is to be a powerful global player then everyone, including myself, must look to help the company reduce the overinflated cost base.
There's lots more meat to be taken off the bone before we're well and truly competitive. We all need to think outside the box, see where we can reduce costs and the future will be so much brighter for all.

Wonker,

You have been peddling this tripe for months since the demise of the BASSA action. Putting a 'I'm only trying to explain to you' condecending tone on it doesn't change the fact that you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Your bluster during the cabin crew dispute is totally at odds with your current' reasoned' approach, enough so to make you seem a little irrelevant.

The position that YOUR previous department (by your own admission on the Cabin Crew thread) found itself in was that there had been no movement with the times, no rationalisation of working procedures, no modernisation of payment ideals etc. They left themselves so exposed when the facade of Union 'protection' (protection only for the very highest to get the very best paid trips) crumbled away.

The pilot workforce has constantly evolved over the years to ensure a competitive product for the company. The BACC is quite happy for the pilots to be benchmarked as we know we are competitive in the real world. Also, due to close working relationships with the company at a high level, any changes, proposed or implemented are done so at a joint level between the company and the BACC. We, as a group, are more than willing to change and evolve as time goes by, our past has shown such. But, of course, you're a 'manager' this week so that would all be obvious to you.

Very true, which is why the IAG head team have been spending so much time in Spain the past few months where the situation is 'difficult'. Also the number of personnel per airframe is disproportionate in IAG compared to some other carriers. What is interesting in this number is that the number of 'flying personell' e.g. Flight crew and Cabin crew are the same, it is back office staff and some ground staff that are excessive.

If you want to fly an airline safely you need safe hands at the controls of the aircraft. Many say that customers vote to the cheapest ticket. In many cases this is true but, in the case of corporate companies and high value employee's the Airlines safety record and professionalism is also a major concern. BA is one of these, just as Corporate Customer Services in Cranebank next time you are there. Don't believe me? Then why has Siemens banned all corporate travel within Europe on RYR? Not because of poor decisions from the crew in fuel policy but because of the abhorrent management processes that forced those crews into making those fuel choices in the first place.

Very few airlines can afford a hull loss.

Want to trim the meat off? Bring down the ridiculously high number of inneffective and nebulous, blood sucking managers.

When I got into commercial aviation, the limit was 1,000 hours per annum. The normal limit was 100 hours per month but it was possible to do 120 hours if you had a quick medical check-up at the 100 hour point.

When I started flying on the N-register, the rules were 100 hours in 30 calendar days up to a maximum of 300 in 90 days. It was quite legal to fly 120 hours in a 30 day period (international) as long as 300 in 90 was not exceeded.

I have it in my mind that the 900 hours per annum limit came in with JARs so are we not just going back to where we were?

Please don't get me wrong; I am not saying that this is a good idea but I do wonder if we are not going back 30 years.

Mike you make some valid points but at the end of the day flightcrew costs at many legacy carriers are above market the rate. I'm sure if you were starting up an airline would you pay above market rates take AirAsia as an example do they have a problem to recruit pilots the correct answer is NO.

truck

Ignore him/her - If I can't get a sensible response to my point about over cabin crew "back to backs", despite wonker being concerned about "bunching of work", you're not going to get anything meaningful back about Flight Safety.

I'm not sure how an ostrich can make so much noise with it's head stuck so firmly in the sand....

The simple fact is that the FAA are going in the opposite direction and the results of any fatigue in the 'Euroland' system will be seen in tired pilots landing and taxying large jets around congested airfields and airspace in?????

America.

How long before the trans-atlantic pressure, quite rightly, begins to be applied?

Perhaps after a few ground collisions and a few, hopefully, near misses in the air the real world will wake up and realise that having tired people flying 200+ tonne aircraft into congested airspace is a little more difficult, tricky and dangerous than having a truck driver fall asleep at the wheel (truck drivers have more stringent safety regulations than we do now!).

:ugh:

Head stuck in the sand??
 

Wiggy, Quote:-" I'm not sure how an ostrich can make so much noise with it's head stuck so firmly in the sand...."

I am not quite so sure that it is sand in which the ostrich has its head so firmly stuck!

WW, has it ever occured to you that on a strategic level, your leader, your namesake has made a blunder of monumental proportions by getting into bed with Iberia?

His 7 year tenure has been an unmitigated disaster for the owners of the business that you care so much about.

Maybe it is time for him (and you) to go.....

RHINO yes mistakes have been made along the way getting into bed with IB was not one of our best moves and WW must take a certain amount of blame for something i tend to agree with you to a degree. Stripping costs out of the business remains top of the priority list such an example would be market rate pay structures with flightdeck terms being a prime example. If you compare a BA Captains wage to that of say a Monarch Captain both capable of flying from A to B then you can notice who brings home a larger pay packet. Big changes on the way thats all i can say at this moment in time.

So sorry it's taken so long to get back to you wiggy as it has taken a while to source some facts regarding back to back flights for cabin crew. One US eastcoast and return flight would generate two days off or MBT's after it. It is far more productive to have the company use those crew to add another eastcoast onto it, this only results in 3 days off or MBT's. So as you can see it displays a higher degree of crew usage, hence increased profitability for the company. The back to back concept was passed as safe by the CAA/FAA and has indeed now been copied by various other airlines operating across the pond.

I always book my medical at Waterside on Friday afternoons. Lots of parking space! What was it about pilots working 11% harder?

Take the Pilot and Cabin Crew salaries from 20 or 30 years ago and factor them by CPI/RPI.

Now take management salaries and bonuses from the same period and do the same.

Which ones come out as overinflated?

Generally management salaries are low and topped up with bonus/share options if challenging targets are met. Don't forget your pension is linked to your pensionable pay, just the basic element. Many nights are spent burning the midnight oil, sometimes for nothing. Plans and business cases put forward have more chance of not coming to fruition than be accepted, sometimes demoralising all concerned.
Compare that to someone who collects a basic wage up to £140,000pa and has a final salary pension of £80,000pa. It is incomprehensible how a carrier can continue to fund this in the present climate. Whilst you would like a comparison between management/flight/cabin crew, lets not ignore this is the big elephant that really needs tackling - the feather nest you're going to lay in when your wings are mantle piece ornaments.
Freeze the final salary scheme as of tomorrow for all and revert to a money purchase scheme - that's what would truly make us a world beating airline in the profitability stakes.

Your real problems are in Spain. Unemployment at 25% and rising. Another bailout request coming next month. BA married the wrong airline.

It will take more than another 100 hours a year and a cut in pensions to get Willie out of this hole.

What is the product you are dealing with here? Moving passengers and/or cargo.

Who moves the product? Pilots and cabin crew.

Everything else in the business supports those functions. In descending order they are maintenance, airport staff and last are the worker bees at the head office. They are last and least needed. They should outsourced wherever possible and kept to a minimum head count. This includes HR, training and general office staff. They need to realize that without front line staff they have no job. Their sole function should be "how can I support the people moving the customers?"

My friend Jock, I totally agree with you - it's going to be challenging for the next 5 years. A Spanish bailout will not materially affect IB. If customer numbers drop together with yields and our cost cutting programme is not implemented then we're talking serious trouble, but all is in hand. As I've said on numerous occasions we all need to do our bit and there's still meat on the bone in BA. IB has hardly been touched yet.
I've every faith in Willie. He's steered us through tough times and I'm sure he'll still be here in 5 years to announce a £1 billion profit - that's our target!

Which is why you will find that BA's employee count has reduced from 68000 to 32000 in 4 years - Impressive?

Working time directive
 

Waterside worker - you are fortunate in being covered by the working time directive of 48 hours per week - as incidentally are almost all other employees including I might add even Junior Doctors nowadays.

Sadly pilots and aircrew are one of the few exemptions under the current rules and so even without the new EASA limits my company according to our crewing agreement can roster me up to 55 hours duty per week and this is extendable to 60 hours if required by them.

I'm afraid I already think that being at the controls after 55 hours on irregular shift work is unwise. It is of course the nature of capitalists such as yourself to want to squeeze more and more out of the workforce in return for lower and lower wages and poorer terms and conditions. There are some - (and perhaps you're one of them) who would like us to go the whole hog and return to Victorian working practices for all, we could even start sending kids of 14 to work so that Captains of industry can pay themselves even larger salaries and bonuses than they already do. Happily to counteract this drive we have unions whose aim is to enhance conditions for the little man and try and get a more equal share of the pie and also a regulator, whose role is to promote safety through law which is of course likely to cost more.

I've been flying only six years since leaving a job in airline management and in that time have dealt with quite a lot of situations that demanded a high level of training and skill from pressurisation problems, flap failures, door warnings, lighting strikes, bird strikes, strong winds and electronics problems to more serious events like landing gear failure and a strong smell of electrical burning necessitating immediate return to the ground with a blue light reception. I can assure you that no spreadsheet or management conundrum ever stretched me to the very limits as much as these occasions. Given that fact I would really rather not be fighting tiredness and trying to think clearly when dealing with them and if your wife/child/Mother etc was on board I suggest they would rather like people like us to be well rested while trying to get them back safely on terra-firma.

There's a notion amongst airline managers, beancounters and the travelling public that we sit there all day everyday with the automatics in sipping coffee watching the Alps roll by, but as you can see from my litany of events above (in only 6 years), it's not always like that. The fact that there aren't smoking holes in the ground all over the place is because of the training and professionalism of aircrew coupled with a regulatory framework that provides some (but not in my view enough) protection from fatigue.

Overstaffed!
 

Watersidewonker Quote:-"Which is why you will find that BA's employee count has reduced from 68000 to 32000 in 4 years - Impressive?"

Not really, it is obviously still overstaffed by at least one.