Deep Thought - United Furlough now what?

[flyingitalian]

A friend of mine that I flew with at COEX went to United in 98 or early 99 I cant remember exactly, but he was one of the last to get furloughed. He is a young married guy, no kids and since we were in the training dept together he did not have a lot of PIC. He joined Gulf Air and made a commitment to stay at least a few years. He recently wrote about his exprience and thought I'd share.
***

Things are good out here... this really is the experience I was looking for. Everything is safe living in Bahrain but the quality of life at Gulf Air would make COEX look like gold. I get 8 days off a month (reducible to 6) but 6 weeks vacation a year (with positive space tickets home). There are basically 3 types of duty here. First is a day trip with an out and back to the west - Athens (9 hours of flying, no relief crews ever), Khartoum, Beirut, Damascus, Amman, etc. Those are nice. Second is an 'inter-gulf' trip with lots of ups and downs to places like Kuwait, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Muscat, Teheran and Shiraz (Iran). And the last is the all night east bound trips. That's what I'm on now.. This group of days is typical --

(all times are Bahrain local)

6:40am show
7:55 Bahrain - Abu Dhabi
9:40 Abu Dhabi - Dubai
11am Dubai - Abu Dhabi -

- layover for 14 hours

2am Abu Dhabi - Bombay
6am Bombay - Abu Dhabi

-layover for 24 hours

10am Abu Dhabi - Doha
11:30 Doha - Abu Dhabi
--- 5 hour airport sit (no hotel room)
5:30 Abu Dhabi - Bahrain

--12 hour in base

6:40am Bahrain - Abu Dhabi

-layover for 13 hours

10pm Abu Dhabi - Cochin (4 1/2 hour flight)
3am Cochin - Abu Dhabi ( 4 hours back)
8:30 deadhead back to Bahrain

20 hour in base followed by an Istanbul turn (8 hour flying)

It's really hard to ever sleep well, your body gets so turned around going between all night India turns and morning flights. There are 50 nationalities represented with the pilots alone. The locals (Bahraini, Omani etc) are not so good with operational common sense, but they make up for it by knowing the FOM and aircraft manual really well (even if they don't really follow it).

The experience has been really good though. ATC in Saudi won't lift a finger for you, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, and Jordan don't pass any flight information between themselves so you have to call them 10 minutes before entering their airspace, Iran is non-radar, but you have to get permission from "Iran military radar control" before entering their airspace and talking to Teheran Center... and going across the Arabian Sea to India is the worst. It's HF for about an hour with Mumbai control, and IF you are able to get through to him (there is a lot of frequency congestion since Kabul and Delhi may use the same freq, and all the Europe-far east flights are on the same tracks), it sounds like the controller is using a WWII radio while sitting in an outhouse... I've had nights where I was only able to get through on about 1/2 of the position reports.

All in all it's fun for the novelty of it all

 

[vclean]

The FAA wants to 'fix' our ATC by privatization.

 

[Mooseflyer]

Sounds a lot like my job, but with shorter duty days and more days off.... At least I get to come back to the good 'ole U.S. of A after a few weeks though.

 

[WhiteCloud]

The FAA wants to 'fix' our ATC by privatization.

And they want to "fix" security by making it federal.

 

[typhoonpilot]

What airplane does your friend fly ?

That schedule must be one of the reasons that Gulf Air pilots have been coming to Emirates in the last few years.

I get to deal with Mumbai tonight on the way to Columbo. Sometimes it takes me 45 minutes until they answer and sometimes I just give up. Last month I went though their airspace without talking to them once. If they can't invest in better radio equipment why should I even bother.

I quite enjoy flying over Saudi Arabia. It's nice when they don't want to talk to you for 400 miles. I enjoy the peace and quiet, it lets me read the paper without interruption

Typhoonpilot

 

[flyingitalian]

What airplane does your friend fly ?

airbus 320 I believe.

 

[GogglesPisano]

And they want to "fix" security by making it federal.

You've got to admit, the TSA is an improvement over the "privatized" (lowest-bidder) that let Atta through on 9/11.

 

[Mooseflyer]

You've got to admit, the TSA is an improvement over the "privatized" (lowest-bidder) that let Atta through on 9/11.

Agreed!

 

[captainv]

You've got to admit, the TSA is an improvement over the "privatized" (lowest-bidder) that let Atta through on 9/11.

i think it's better and worse. on the down side, a lot of the same people are now federal employees, who are paid more, get lots more benes and are now exceedingly hard to fire. after a year and a half, TSA finally gets around to firing those with criminal convictions. need i mention the brain surgeons who rode through the x-ray machine to see what their brains looked like? on the plus side, i have yet to see an undermanned security checkpoint.

refresh my memory, how did airport security err in letting Atta through? he wasn't carrying anything illegal (at the time), and i don't believe he was one of the guys on the CIA watch list, and airport security didn't have access to that then anyway. short of being clairvoyant, how would they have known?

 

[willard]

Your question of who's been hired at a Major prior to 23 yrs of age can be answered in two words... Brats and Minorities. Neither of these groups will come forward on this board and discuss how they were hired at a young age with little experience (relative to the average) due to the obvious criticizm that would follow. I challenge any to do so. I don't blame these individuals, the system is to blame. In a safety sesitive position, experience should be all that matters, but it's not.

 

[SFR]

Wrong thread dude!!!

BTW you don't seem to have much experience with only 5000 total time.

What is experience? I think some are born for the job and some not!! There are some that need 10,000 hours to feel comfortable and others that pick up aviation fast.

Who cares basically...

 

[WhiteCloud]

You've got to admit, the TSA is an improvement over the "privatized" (lowest-bidder) that let Atta through on 9/11.

Absolutely! Our government has the responsibility to protect us and not farm ATC or security out to the lowest bidder. I'm just pointing out that government plays both sides depending on what the political agenda is.

 

[80drvr]

You've got to admit, the TSA is an improvement over the "privatized" (lowest-bidder) that let Atta through on 9/11.

Why would they have stopped Atta on 9/11? He was doing nothing wrong until he and his cohorts hijacked the aircraft. Would the TSA have done anything differently under the FAA rules that were in place at the time. This is a red herring to keep the heat off the beurocrats who really dropped the ball.

 

[Gillegan]

"The experience has been really good though. ATC in Saudi won't lift a finger for you, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, and Jordan don't pass any flight information between themselves so you have to call them 10 minutes before entering their airspace, Iran is non-radar, but you have to get permission from "Iran military radar control" before entering their airspace and talking to Teheran Center... and going across the Arabian Sea to India is the worst. It's HF for about an hour with Mumbai control, and IF you are able to get through to him (there is a lot of frequency congestion since Kabul and Delhi may use the same freq, and all the Europe-far east flights are on the same tracks), it sounds like the controller is using a WWII radio while sitting in an outhouse... I've had nights where I was only able to get through on about 1/2 of the position reports."

Not sure if you are trying to make a point here. That is what flying "international" in most of the rest of the world is all about. In fact, the hand holding that you get used to in N. America and Europe is the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Flying the Line]

The FAA doesn't wan't to be privatized, the Republicans do. They bid it out, the winning bidder then reduces pay to controllers and regular FAA personnel, they raise fees to the users and the left over profit is then dived up and given to managment in the form of bonuses.

Lets do the smart thing and leave the FAA alone.