OR how about:
-24+ hour duty days
-having to fight for your pay the way the contract reads.
-Dead heading around the world in the back-middle seat on Air India or Ethiopian Airlines, etc, (just to name a few from the past 2 months.)
-siting in a hotel for 15 days in a row without flying one trip, just to have scheduling tell you that you have to work on your GDO because your the only one ( im in the top 20% of the pilots list)
-flying to (WAR Zones) Afghanistan etc. without any hazard pay.
-Geting to the destination after being up for over 30+ hrs and there never any transportation set up (Happened every trip last month, Except IN BKK. )
-Geting to the hotel and your Reservation has be canceled or Set up for the Wrong day, (Happened 4 time last month...)
-F**kup Flight plans... with misSING requirements, (every trip to many to list).
-Over nights in dangerous city in Africa with out secure transportation to or from the hotel.
- having to hold for 30 + min because dispatcher never filed over flight permits.
-flying airplanes without GPS, having countries ground, and impound your aircraft because you can't operate RNAV the way they want. DXB
-detained by CUSTOMS for hrs because the company can't set up VISA for crewmembers.
HEY BUT SOME PEOPLE REALLY LIKE THIS TYPE OF FLYING!
Sword, I appreciate your frustration, and I can certainly understand it. Every single one of your complaints has validity behind them.
The question I pose you is this: what, if anything, have
you done about it? Have you sent in a report to the proper people when your flight plan was jacked up? Have you sent in a report when your hotel reservation was screwed up? Or when the proper visa documentation wasn't in order, did you report it?
Or did you do what many here currently do, which is nothing except complain? It's a rhetorical question, I really don't need to know the answer. If you
did file the proper reports, then good. If you
didn't, then start. Southern Air got to the state that it's in today for many reasons, crew group apathy being a big one. I know 2 years ago when the Neffs were in charge, there was a vindictive hostile management in place, and pilots were happy just to have a job, so they took whatever crap came down from the mountaintop.
For the most part, that's been removed. Changes
are happening. When was the last time you had a 24+ duty day? Mine was last year. The GDO pay issue has been resolved; it took far longer than it should have, but we got the result we deserved. Travel in middle seat coach? Yeah, that's a load of bull, but it will be addressed in negotiations.
We have a long way to go to get where we want to be. Make no mistake, at no point did I ever try to paint a rosy picture of this place, and I'm not making up anything to try to entice people to come here. Read back every one of my posts; everything I write about this place is nothing but fact. Yes, this place is screwed up, but more importantly, it has the ability to change. Maintenance is improving, QOL is improving, and most importantly, our on time performance is improving, allowing us to get some of the big name clients we've just signed contracts with.
There are better places to be, for sure. But there are far far worse places as well. Stop complaining and start becoming more proactive. That's the only way this place will improve.
:laugh:
