Wizz Air - Genuine safety issues or 1 or 2 upset staff?

[roadsmash]

Makes for grim reading:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/news/veteran-wizz-...

[5150]

Tip of the iceberg

[Jimbo.]

Do air crew have anything equivalent to tachographs, recording working time, flying time, rest periods etc?

[aeropilot]

5150 said:

Tip of the iceberg

[roadsmash]

5150 said:

Tip of the iceberg

Could you elaborate?

[Prawo Jazdy]

Having a low basic salary, with the rest made up of pay per hour (or per flight etc), does seem like an effective disincentive to calling in sick or otherwise not fit.

Other airlines are almost certainly not paying “double” the figures he gave though. Maybe in the USA…

[Chuck328]

Prawo Jazdy said:

Other airlines are almost certainly not paying “double” the figures he gave though. Maybe in the USA…

I don't know. If PPJN is accurate, the Wizz UK contract is woeful compared to Jet2, easy, Tui, BA (mainline) etc. All of these are well in excess of 100k PA.

Basic 56K for a Wizz skipper !

[Prawo Jazdy]

I was taking the monthly figure from the article. I’m not saying it’s good by the way!

[AndrewGP]

Jimbo. said:

Do air crew have anything equivalent to tachographs, recording working time, flying time, rest periods etc?

Yes, it’s very tightly regulated and in general, you can’t step outside the rules. The main issue is that the baseline rules set by EASA (and used by most airlines) may be legal but are not sustainable long term and eventually make people call in sick and/or fatigued.

That’s said, I have stepped outside the rules by some margin many times but that was a military flying not civilian, stuff like a search and rescue op in the Falklands where all the rules were thrown out the window to just get the job done.

[Crumpet]

AndrewGP said:

Jimbo. said:

Do air crew have anything equivalent to tachographs, recording working time, flying time, rest periods etc?

Yes, it’s very tightly regulated and in general, you can’t step outside the rules. The main issue is that the baseline rules set by EASA (and used by most airlines) may be legal but are not sustainable long term and eventually make people call in sick and/or fatigued.

That’s said, I have stepped outside the rules by some margin many times but that was a military flying not civilian, stuff like a search and rescue op in the Falklands where all the rules were thrown out the window to just get the job done.

The duty limits are used as targets when really they should be used to allow for exceptional circumstances. How anyone can think maxing out 60 duty hours in a week is safe - particularly with early and late starts thrown in - is beyond me. It’s not helped when the planners start getting creative with the schedule to make things work on paper but basically force the crew into extending into ‘discretion’ - basically extending the work day to 15 hours.

Fortunately the low cost guys don’t have to worry about time zone changes but when you’re sleeping one night in GMT-8 and then the next in GMT+2 it starts to get very tough on the body when the company still want to get all 59.9 hours out of you.

Generally the flight time limitations are a joke - much like the Whizz pay!

[texaxile]

Chuck328 said:

I don't know. If PPJN is accurate, the Wizz UK contract is woeful compared to Jet2, easy, Tui, BA (mainline) etc. All of these are well in excess of 100k PA.

Basic 56K for a Wizz skipper !

Shocking. Tube drivers get more for 35 hours a week.

I thought that Pilots hours were very strictly regulated, are they not scrutinised by the relevant Aviation authorities?

[surveyor]

A reliable source of google says that the basic is plus distance pay.

56000 GBP Gross excluding distance pay

I will guess that will add up.