Tolerating pilots.
What do you mean you are fatiguing for the New York? You’ve just had 8 days off and this is your first fucking duty!
Of course, I cannot reply to the email in such a derisive tone. For that would earn me a little trip to HR and perhaps a permanent exit to this way-too-long held “career”. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200.
20 years ago, I was galivanting around a British regional airport’s ramp, clipboard in hand, full of promise. With gay abandon one might say. Then one fateful day three years later I decided to upgrade myself to Crew Scheduler. I somehow breezed the interview, even managing a witty quip on what biscuit I would be, should I ever be required to be one. I exchanged the wind and the rain for a warm and cosy office, swapping also grunting ramp rats who hurled bags for female colleagues in pencil skirts. I could get used to this, I thought.
Anyway, zip back to present day. I am of course older now. Or just old. Depends on if you ask my two kids. I am sitting in an open plan office bereft of fresh air (air conditioning toils around the clock and God forbid us having windows which open at an airport) It is dark outside, cold and drizzly. The ephemeral highs of the German summer a mere memory.
As I tap away on the keyboard the phone’s infuriating tone is incessant. Pilot after pilot calling in. Pick up goddamit you peasant, you’re paid to deal with my annoyances! I am thankfully not the only one on shift, so I am occasionally spared the obligation of enduring their litany of moans. However, I am wearing out the minimise button whenever anyone walks behind me. This new writing venture might be my new muse and therapy, but I have zero intention of anyone of finding out.
You see, I am one of those quiet people. Someone who needs neither constant chat nor attention but still often reluctantly faces both. My primary school yearly reports seemed intent on alerting my parents to the fact that Caleb is such a quiet boy, like it was a detriment to my education that needed parental reaction. I recently read about introverts and caught myself nodding at their ostensible symptoms. An epiphany was born. These days, home is my sanctuary and any endeavour to the exterior is met with an inward groan.
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So yeah, to wrap up this inaugural mind vomit, let’s circle back to this hugely entitled prick of a pilot. Sadly, they are not few nor far between… I work for an airline seemingly bent on pampering the already overtly coddled pilots. As mentioned, this particular arsehole has just enjoyed plentiful free time and now without any kind of recourse is declaring himself unfit to operate across the pond. On his first day no less! He has not even had chance to accumulate fatigue. Any tiredness could only originate from his own free time!
While there will always be outlying circumstances it is not uncommon for pilots here to have a trend of laziness and blatant malingering. Repercussions? None. How uncanny that the majority of these shirkers report sick either directly before or after their vacation time. It stinks of premeditation. Consequences? Zilch. But wait, this smacks of blatant generalisation! You may be right, what do I know? I have only suffered this role for 20 years and alas, counting…
Moving swiftly on to yet another tale of entitlement. The company provides sleeping rooms on a priority basis. We are a cargo outfit and fly throughout Europe in the small hours. Pilots get tired and need their beauty sleep. So if you arrive into the base and are flying out again in one duty, you are entitled to a room. I guess the logic was, tired pilot — crashy crashy. Quick! Give them a duvet and a fluffy pillow…
Now, the majority of our lovely pilots do not live anywhere near the base. Some even choosing the fly two sectors (flights) as a commuter before they even begin their duty. How often such positioning is quickly glossed over in flight accident reports. Sure, he only flew 5 hours before they crashed, but what about his self-inflicted epic 11 hour commute?
Time after time pilots rock up at the counter expecting a room when they have no priority. They are based here and are therefore acutely respoinsible to find their own permanent digs. But as few are aware, the pilot species are notoriously tight. I should know, I grew up with one. Their wallets are clamped shut. They won’t spend a single penny if they do not have to. Again, generalising? Well, you’d be surprised how endemic it is.
It’s astonishing yet not unexpected to frequently witness an entitled pilot threaten to “go fatigued” for his upcoming flight if he’s not granted a sleeping room. Go ahead dickhead, see if we care….
To embellish this picture I will use examples from my childhood. My Dad, a retired pilot, would bring home countless shampoo bottles and bars of soap from hotels, cans of drink from the plane, you name it, if it wasn’t bolted to the floor it would be coming home. Recently when I was visiting, he patiently waited for his 50p change from a food delivery driver — the bill being 19.50 and he had given a 20 pound note…
Dozens more anecdotes from my work await. A flurry of mind outpourings too. I won’t unpack everything immediately, let’s enjoy the foreplay while it lasts. But as I hinted, this might very well be therapeutic for me. A valid segue to my next post which will likely have a theme of married male loneliness….
So, stick around if you want to know what pilots are really like. How I am coping with life in my 40s and a smorgasbord of other topics. Fear not, I am never going to urge you like and subscribe. Fuck, don’t you just fucking hate when so called influencers demand that?!
