Editorials

PAID PASSENGERS – AT WHAT COST?

15/10/10 16:48 Filed in: Air Safety | Aviation
A Qatar Airlines Captain died, after a heart attack, during a flight.
Two days ago a Qatar Airlines Captain died, after a heart attack, during a flight from Manilla to Doha. His First Officer diverted the aircraft to KL and landed safely.

This tragic event, whilst having a safe outcome for the rest of the crew and the 260 passengers; is a wake-up call for the industry. And if the industry isn’t listening, for the passengers.

Gulf airlines tend to employ highly experienced pilots who have had entire careers at airlines in their home countries before embarking on an expat lifestyle. And they spend big money on simulator training, most having their own simulator centres. Their FOs train-for and are examined on their response to ‘pilot incapacitation’.

 Currently the low-cost carriers in many countries are suffering a pilot shortage and are populating their right seats with very inexperienced crew.

They outsource their simulator training -- paying by the hour. Pilots have to pay for their own aircraft endorsements - around $25,000.

That they are suffering the shortage may be due to their inability to pay reasonable wages, meaning that experienced pilots have chosen to go offshore in search of a proper income.

But it’s more than this. Four sector days with no overnights, mean you have to drive to the airport, pay tollway charges, park the car, catch a bus to the terminal, fly; then do the reverse, every day of your week.

It’s fatiguing, and in Australia, for 67% of what you were getting paid a decade ago.

One ‘low-cost’ (in more ways than one) Captain recently told me that his new A320 First Officer, whilst intelligent and enthusiastic, had previously only flown one type: a Cessna 152. A forty year-old two-seater training aircraft.

Now, when the Captain has his heart attack, in an aircraft that may be carrying numerous defects, on the proverbial ‘dark and stormy night’ … you have to ask: is the new F.O., under training, and with little more, experience-wise, than a paid passenger, going to perform as well as the Qatar Airlines First Officer in K.L.?

I hope we never have to find out, but fear —more likely— that one day we will.



15th October 2010

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