The Juice

People should never hesitate to call in fatigued if they are truly fatigued, regardless of the number of hours rest they had or if they are coming off a days off.

However, those who abuse the policy to suit their own needs only hurts their fellow pilots who use the policy in a responsible way.

The FastRead that was sent out today gave examples of how pilots have been abusing the fatigue policy, and it is a chosen few who are making it difficult for the rest. Posting on your Facebook acct that you are planning to call in fatigued in order to go home early is not the way the fatigue policy was to be used.

I, in no way, agree with the new company policy. However a select few pilots are making the argument to Mgmt from our MEC a more difficult one.

Remember guys, if you are truly fatigued you should not hesitate to call in fatigued, just do not abuse it.

BeaglePilot

Its always a few bad apples that always screw it up for someone else. But it goes to show the public that Colgan can not handle their issues with the pilot group in a professional manner.

kalyx522

No it didnt.. there were examples of how "crewmembers" abused it. Some or most or all those examples could be FAs. In the two memo examples, they use the words "flight attendant" and "crew member," but not pilot. Maybe because that "crew member" is an FA as well? I have to give a fellow pilot more credit than to do something so dumb and lacking of sense as that facebook situation.. personally I've never met another pilot here that I can even imagine lying about fatigue. Quite honestly though it is something I can definitely imagine many of our 18 yr old FAs doing. I don't care if that sounds bad because it is what it is. I don't think many of our FAs take their jobs as a whole as seriously as we do because they haven't invested 1% of the time, energy and money into this profession as we did and dont have anything hanging on the line. Not like a pilot who, if fired, would likely see his aviation career go down the tubes forever and possibly face FAA action depending on reason for getting fired. Likewise, I'm willing to bet what little money I have that FAs have far more fake sick calls than pilots. The company's all putting us in the same basket even if the abuses were done 30% by pilots and 60% by FAs or whatever the distribution is. I don't even know why FAs are afforded the same fatigue protection as pilots or inversely, why we are punished under a blanket policy for even one abuse committed by an FA. Ok, so their job involves safety but nowhere in the capacity as someone who is directly operating machinery. I don't think I'm a better human being than an FA just because I'm a pilot, but I just don't think we should be under the same policy when our job requirements are so different.

Sky Angel

Yes, USA Today received the memo.

The Juice

I know for a fact that the example of the pilot calling for reserve release to commute home, getting denied, and then calling back a minute later fatigued so they could go home was a pilot.

I am willing to bet a lot of these abuses were FA's but lets not act like no pilots are above abusing the policy, because they are not.

kalyx522

I didnt say that.. I said personally I dont know of anyone who would do such a thing. What I do know is that FAs have done their fair share of abuse if not more than pilots and this probably contributed to the new policy being implemented (a couple abuses from the pilots, magnified god knows how much by FAs). I don't think pilots should have the same fatigue policy as FAs and that's what annoys me that the company is grouping us altogether in this blanket policy.

skidmark

The bottom line is that the pilots at Colgan morale is so low, they don't care about the fatigue/sick call rules. Improve the morale, then maybe we care.

sinsilvia666

agreed. as well as what skidmark said - thats def no lie with the current attitudes... "its only after you lost everything, that your free to do anything"

FlyJSH

The few bad apples who abuse fatigue are yet another missed opportunity for management to gain some point with labor. The 90+% of us who use fatigue properly understand there are a few knuckle heads who need some guidance. Had management passed the repeat offenders over to pro standards and said "perhaps you folks could provide these individuals some advice on ways to prevent fatigue," they might have gained some good will with labor. Instead, they issue the "guilty until proven innocent" memo.

Hey Mary and Harry!
By the way, nice job asking folks to volunteer for reduced lines. Just how did we go from overstaffed to needing check airmen flying as FOs in one week?

belliott

NO KIDDING! And what about the 500+ hours of open time for FO's? People keep disappearing from the seniority list... I doubt we are heavy on pilots... I have received 3 phone calls from sched. asking me to pick up trips.... and I am a line holder.... makes me scratch my head and wonder why.