Orange diarrhoea
 

Hello everybody

I'm new here, I've never succumbed to post on pprune before. why now I hear you ask........good question!

I have been a professional pilot for 15 years now, I started my career flying props and then rapidly progressing on to heavy jets and latterly Easyjet. I have been flying as a captain for Easyjet for 6 years now, based in LGW currently, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm just so fatigued and tired of it all.

I constantly pick up changes, rarely keep any standbys, not has any summer leave. I have requested part time only to be told your on the list.

I constantly flying with inexperienced cadets, I'm having to train these young guys to press the buttons in the airbus, where airmanship is simply not taught anymore. I'm finding flexi crew guys dragging them selves in when they are sick, as they are **** scared of not getting a perm contract. This puts pressure on me, which I'm not trained for.

I'm finding myself calling in sick and fatigued at an alarming rate, as I and many of my colleagues are just run down.

My colleagues are generally all good people to fly with and the aircraft that I fly are good bits of kit. It's just all the orange diarrhoea that I have to try and stomach that makes me sick and tired. If we cut all the bull before we go flying the job would be bearable.

I encourage only safe operation of my aircrsft and only taxi on both engines, both packs, config full landings unless otherwise required to do so because of operational reasons such as windshear and not because I can save the company a thimble of fuel. I do not risk my licence for anyone and certainly not for Easyjet.

I can not bear to wear anything orange, or advertising the company, I wear my own uniform as the one the company provides me with is just not fit for purpose.

I find the levels of disengagement across the company, from flight deck, to cabin crew, office shocking. It's so extreme flightdeck wise, people are going to have themselves an accident, only then will the company listen to us, after they have sacked the flight crew of course, as it was there fault.

I am actively seeking alternative employment with another airline, before anybody comments otherwise, and I'm sure some of you will comment that things are not better else where, this may be true, but I wish to try, and there is a handful of good carriers left.

Easyjet are only interested in cost cutting, nothing else, nothing more. Sad, the airline could ave been a great place to work, guess I'll never find out.

Let's hope I seek what I'm looking for.

And as my profile says what happens if this is as good as it gets!

Well, I've had dengue fever, brown kinda diarrhoea, but never orange! :)
Must be new, but by the way I fully understand.

Same airline... different paint job. Welcome to the big leagues.

Experienced FO's are out there. However, some companies would rather hire somebody with 250hrs (or less) than somebody with a few hundred hours of airline experience. A friend of mine is one of them.:ugh:

It's very frustrating to be bypassed for a less experienced candidate, and then hear Captains bemoan the lack of experience in the right seat.

Great post! With this post and the previous "line flying" article by the Ryanair pilot, not sure why anyone would want to fund expensive flight school and then end up flying such exhausting LCC schedules through retirement. Sounds bloody awful. LCCs are a good stepping-stone for experience and then finding a job with better QOL.

BA and VS have their issues (especially ultra-long upgrade times), but the flying sounds far less taxing than what you find at Easy/Ryanair, etc... :eek::{

Have you written to you union reps, your safety manager, and of course, The Authority, and CHIRP?

Pprune is great place to let off steam, and find sympathy and support but is not a place to get official action. Whistle blowing is a scary thing to do, but is often necessary.

I speak as an experienced FO who is being passed over in favour of youngsters with deep pockets. Good luck with getting your point heard.

Would you say I got lucky that my Class 1 got restricted? I certainly feel that way sometimes.

I very much agree with Firestorm

Write to Chirp, and continue to do so, and all of you other guys who feel the same as agaig must do the same. Also, write to the company's CAA Flight Ops Inspector, copied in to Chirp. Tell him that you are making the report in good faith in the spirit of professionalism and as a moral duty to your passengers and crew. Specifically request that your identity remains confidential as you are in fear of spiteful recrimination from your employer.

If you are in a union (and you should be), keep on at them; don't let them off the hook, because in my view, their inactivity on this makes them just as bad as the employer

We are given command of an airliner. But our responsibility goes much further than just getting the machine safely from a to b. We also have a moral and professional responsibility to our colleagues and to the travelling public.

Don't hold back - get stuck in, all of you!

6

Funny, isn't it. The Public used to group EasyJet and Ryanair together in their mind, and we in the industry used to kee preminding family and friends that, no, they were nothing like each other. EasyJet was a professionally run, friendly company, and Ryanair was, well, you know....

Unfortunately, the Current management at EasyJet have tried their best to transform that company into an Orange version of the other one, and now, they really are just as bad as each other in many ways.

Those blokes who set up CTC have a lot to answer for as well!

R.I.P. the Airline industry.

As-good-as-it-gets
Not wanting to sound dismissive of your post - but, yes, it is time you moved on.

I've been in easy a lot longer than you and I've been in aviation a lot longer than you and, no, I don't agree with you. Operating was a lot more challenging and the job had a lot more to it in the past; what was different was that we didn't work so many days. Once at work our job entailed a lot more: planning the flight, going to the met office, fileing our own flight plans, down route sorting out tech problems ourselves (no mobile phones for us), paying the handling and landing fees, the list goes on. We relied on the F/O to carry out many more tasks alone then.

So the job is very different and perhaps with modern reliable equipment and all the ops and engineering support we get these days operating with inexperienced F/O's is a small price to pay. Agreed some are a little wet behind the ears and occasionally a little too cocky but the majority are eager and willing to learn. These days the F/O is constantly supervised by the captain.

I've come to the conclusion we must move with the times. I wish the airline would recruit pilots from general aviation jobs and not such a high proportion straight from the training schools. I wish some individuals would have a real love of flying and aviation rather than a false impression of what the job entails. I wish the attitude of some to authority was better. I wish airmanship throughout the industry was not becoming degraded. And I wish there was more acceptance that getting an aircraft into the air and to it's destination safetly was a team effort that included: the pilots, cabin crew, engineering, ops, dispatch, the refuellers, ATC and so on.

So in my eyes the job is what you make it, just like having a command. Be professional, operate to company SOP's and then make your own decisions. As for not wearing the company supplied uniform; well that is telling in itself. I've found the tone of any duty is dominated by the attitude and demeanour of the captain, 'do-as-you-would-be-done-by'. Don't bring all your hang-ups to work; it is up to you to pace yourself and if it is too much, go fatigued or take a break.

Your next job will probably be different, as you imply the grass is not always greener, but I wish you well.

The OP post raises a number of interesting points, and others have responded with balance.
One issue that I would like to see tested a little more is the notion of "engagement". I'm not persuaded that Flight crew have ever been fully "engaged" with their employers. They have been engaged in what they do, but not much with their actual employers.
A few members of Flight crew have always been engaged, but I think it is a few, and always has been a few.
For some reason, the sense of "belonging" in Aviation is seldom with the employer.

I thought that pilots were well educated.

CHIRP IT !
 

Good post and sadly something that has been on the increase at EZY since 2008.

But have to agree with others here: CHIRP it or send a letter to the Times with other Captains who are brave enough to go into print.

www.chirp.co.uk/downloads/ATFB/ATFB101.pdf

All the best.

As good as it gets


You do realise (I hope) you have opened Pandoras box here (who, he retorts, is Pandora, and where is she based ;) )

Welcome to countless nights (after a thoroughly miserable shift at coal face) wasting good drinking time in the interests of thumping a keyboard to share your misery with the pprune community :ok: Of course, one can drink whilst thumping (Ooer ! ) but the results might explain my gripe in the last Paragraph :hmm:


WHAT HAVE YOU DONE ? ? :ugh:



Nonetheless, welcome to you, hope we treat you gently (at first anyhow) :ooh:


Edited to say, I want my "deleted" posts back. . must have cracked 2500 by now , Shirley ?

How about pink diarrhea?...
 

Hi Guys!

I am reading all of the above, and I must admit that the LCC flying is very far from what I was expecting some years ago during my training.

Just imagine as_good_as_its_gets in Wizz...
You do the same job, same frustration, same boredom, same stupid push to save even E10 at all other costs(read crew)! **** bases! :uhoh:

And all that pleasure for approx 50% of Orange pay. :mad:

Beware of Pink diarrhea!

Good luck everyone! :ok:

Wind up.....

I am sure a lot of people wish it was (but it truly isn't)

Stiglet - that post smacks of someone heavily involved with their own self importance. I pity the FO's who have to bow and scrape to you at work.

As good as it gets, I walked away from the blue and yellow one after 5 years with 4 years to go - I decided that I would rather be on the street than put up with the lifestyle anymore!

Touchwood I had no health problems but I thought if I carry on doing this for much longer I might start to go downhill.

Nothing is more important than your physical mental and emotional health not to mention family relationships etc