Proof Mesa Needs Help!
 

This is my first ever post!



http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/Vi...aa/chod15b.wmv

A little annoying that they brand all regional airlines as sweatshops with pilots who can barely keep their eyes open. There is a huge difference between companies like Mesa and companies like XJT. But if thats what it takes for some change in the industry, I guess thats what it takes.

any press is bad press. They make it sound like they are sleep deprived. A hard schedule and not enough sleep are two different things.

Excellent report. Kudos to Chanel 8. My only criticism was when one of the reporters said, "regulations require pilots get eight hours sleep." I wish they had said "time off duty' emphasizing that does not mean rest.

This coming from a guy that's been there, right? :rolleyes:

Several things come to mind here.

CDO's are tough (I have done 2 years of them), but they are designed for you to sleep in the DAY, and be awake at night (hence still being on duty). So if you don't sleep in the day of course you will be tired. If you are stuck with a CDO schedule you must adapt (not easy) or change schedules (also not easy at some airlines).

My company uses very few CDO's now because our contract makes it VERY expensive for them. Other airlines can do the same.

No offence but you're really not in a position to determine that. Try getting to your destination at 9pm with a 6am show and 45 min. van ride each way, you get about 4 hours, only to have 4 or 5 legs that day.

It happens everywhere, but not as often in some places.

Uh Oh the story is out.
 

I had some trouble following the link here is the story the video seems to be re-linked.

I would of liked this to get some National Coverage.

Tired pilots forced to sleep on plane

12:10 PM CST on Wednesday, November 22, 2006

By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA-TV

Customer
WFAA-TV
Pilots admit to sleeping on the plane between flights.
Also Online

•News 8 Investigates
Tired and broke.

Those words could describe a lot of Americans.

But how about the pilot at the controls of that plane you'll be flying on this Thanksgiving?

When they climb into the cockpit they might have spent the night before "camped out" on the plane.

We're talking about pilots who fly for regional airlines.

Their regional jets may be painted in the colors of American, Delta, United or U.S. Airways.

But they work for separate entities, often controlled by smaller companies.

Some of these pilots make as little as $18,000 a year.

And they say that because of brutal schedules and unsettled living conditions they're exhausted.

Pilots at 30,000 feet, going 500 mph, are so tired they depend on intercom calls from the cabin to keep them awake.

"We also have a flight attendant in the back who sometimes will call up to make sure we're awake. They'll call up on the phone between us and make sure we're not nodding off," said one pilot.

Once on the ground there's another sleep challenge.

Pilots are forced to make their plane into a bedroom.

After raising the armrests, placing a piece of luggage in the aisle, and removing a cushion from another row, seats are made into beds.

Pilots take off their ties and hang up their shirts.

"You don't want to look unprofessional after sleeping in an aircraft," another pilot said.

"There are some people that bring sleeping bags and pillows and their own blankets so they don't have to use the airline blankets."

In airline slang, this is called 'a camp out.'

The most extreme version of what's known as a continuous duty overnight. One of the practices that makes exhaustion part of being a pilot at a regional airline.

"It feels like every cell in your body has a headache," a pilot said.

"You can easily put in a 60-hour workweek," said another.

Here's how.

Federal regulations limit flight time to 30 hours a week.

To log that time, a regional pilot might fly as many as 15 flights over a three to six day period.

Each flight is separated by down time and potential delays. Workdays stretch to 15 hours and each day is different.

"Four times a month you're switching from a daytime to nighttime schedule," said a pilot.

That would be a continuous duty overnight. It might include two night flights, ending early in the morning, followed by three hours off in the middle of the night.

That's when they're forced to sleep on the plane. Technically, they're still on duty, they physically just need rest.

All this is legal because federal regulations say a pilot must simply get eight hours of sleep before the workday started.

Still, pilots say their bodies tell them they're exhausted by shifts that last through the night. And it scares them in the cockpit.

"You know if there's an engine fire, an engine failure happens right now I don't think I'll have the resources to handle it," said a pilot.

Mesa Airlines in Phoenix is best known among pilots for using schedules which require campouts.

Mesa operates four regionals in North America with 1800 pilots and nearly 200 planes, some of which fly into Dallas under the U.S. Airways brand.

Mesa pilots were afraid to talk with us for fear they'd be fired and the airline did not respond to several inquiries about its policies.

We asked the Regional Airline Association, the trade group for regional airlines, about pilot fatigue.

"We want to have well rested crews and we build our schedules accordingly," a spokeswoman Deborah McElroy said.

But pilots say fatigue can warp their perspective.

"I just want to get home. I want to get to sleep. I don't care what happens. I don't care about this maintenance issue," a pilot said.

Pilot rest rules were modified in the 1980s, but the airline business has changed dramatically since then.

The FAA began re-drafting the regulations 11 years ago. But pilots and airlines have not been able to agree on a final version. In a written statement the FAA told News 8: "Our current rules are fundamentally sound... but... the FAA's door is open," for finishing new standards.

Pilots say it will take a catastrophe.

"There's a basic saying that FAA regulations are written in blood. And unfortunately that's what it will take to get these regulations changed," a pilot told WFAA.

Overnights are common among most regional and mainline carriers, including American Eagle.

There's one major exception. Southwest Airlines. Southwest is not a regional airline.

It now carries more passengers than American. But Southwest eliminated standup overnights more than a decade ago and Southwest says its pilots receive an average of 11 hours rest between shifts.

E-mail [email protected].

Airline lingo, "camp out", maybe for ****ty airline like MESA< even at Colgan we didnt use that term

WEll MESA guys, once agian I want to thank you for bringing down the industry even more. (with the exception of the few we see here, nice job on ousting MESA)

It would reallt be good if this report were to get national play. Passengers need to be made aware of what it is really like flying on/for some regionals.

I feel sorry that the report made a blanket statement over all the regional airlines and it did not do a good job of separating major airlines from this issue. They didn't emphasize that this goes on only at a FEW regional airlines. Also adding the 18K a year salary was a real nice touch, now a bunch of junior FOs based in DFW probably won't get laid any time soon. However knowing the media's knowledge in aviation they could have really done worse so over all an ok report.

Does anybody know why a station in DFW did this report? Mesa doesn't even fly there much.

:eek:
Coming from a Colgan pilot, not much room to talk. Don’t bash an airline that you’ve only heard stories from a friends friend who’s cousin works their. I have personally experienced Mesa first hand for 2 years and yes it does suck, you should be bashing management NOT fellow pilots… Mesa guys went through the exact same crap TSA guys are dealing with as we speak. You watch TSA’s contract will suffer to get Gojets jets back under one roof. My recommendation to you is don’t let anyone know your screen name here-as in XJET.

hahahahaahah...................................... ........ok:D


Management is going to continue to do this until the PILOT group stands up for themselves. And save me the a lot of other people on here dislike MESA, just caus everybody on here loves to argue with me doesnt mean you have to single me out.

You do have a point. Is not the Mesa guys, is that piece of sh!t Orstein and his buddies that have made that company what it is today. I for one stand by you guys, as our well being and our ability to negotiate a good contract down the line will hang on the balance of yours. So you have my support.

Mesa schedules to the max allowable by the FAR's...unfortunately no common sense is specified in the FAR's. Mesa standups do not always allow for sleep during the day because they do not always keep you on the same cycle...

You need 8 hours of rest, right? OK, so get up at 0600, fly a couple legs in the morning, get to LAS around noon. Now take an 8-9 hour break, go back to the airport and fly an all-nighter. Did you get your legal "rest"? Yup. Did you really sleep much during the afternoon? Probably not, because you started that day on the front, not the back of the clock. Also, the hotel hosts wedding receptions outside your room.

Night shift flying is largely impractical at the regional airlines. Most (but not all) industries that use a night shift staff it with folks who prefer that shift or at least stay on it for an extended period of time so they get acclimated.

Very few pilots prefer living their life on the backside, so they fly their shifts, and then immediately return to the front-side. When they go back to work, they are out of sync again... Most pilots view night flying as a temporary hardship that will be remedied by seniority, so they gut it out but never really adapt. This is a safety problem, as well as a QOL issue.

There is also a big difference between one long leg and 4-5 short ones. From personal experience, a long leg is better. You are alert when you show up, you get the bird airborne and then the fatigue hits you enroute. That's OK, you can be less alert enroute as long as you can wake up for 20-30 minutes to do the approach, landing, and taxi. Going up and down all night is brutal...

Management can and should be held responsible for every aspect of the poor conditions at mesa.

Unfortunately there is a grain of truth to what our boy saab says. I spent a few years being optomistic about mesa's next contract, then gradually came to the realization that a large percentage of the pilot group might not have the ballz to stand up for themselves when the time comes. I voted with my feet rather than wait and see.

DRASTIC events are going to be required to change anything at mesa: extended strike, loss of codeshare, furloughs. That will be the only way to purge mesa of JO and his merry band of @ss-clowns. Are you ready to do it?

Please prove me wrong in 2007 guys.

For Mesa to purge J.O it will take an act of God and I do not say this to wish the guys and gals at Mesa any harm. Mesa has a factory which feeds them pilots from Farmington NM. as long as they will keep having these low time Pilots come out of Mesa Pilot development J.O is going to continue to screw his work force. Like Rickair777 the only way might be to walk out and search for a decent company to contribute your efforts to where you will be treated as a professional.

My friend at AA actually loves trips that end with a redeye. His third trip day ends at like 5am and he lives 20 minutes from ORD, so he considers it a day off. One recent line he had was... Day 1: (early start) ORD-PHL-ORD-TPA.
Day 2 (early start): TPA-DFW-SFO. End in SFO at 11am local, 12 hour layover during the afternoon/evening, then redeye SFO-ORD. End in ORD at like 5am on Day 3. Goes home, sleeps for a few hours, then goes fishing. He loves that line.

Just an odd question: isn't management supposed to look out for the owners of the company and make them money? The pilot's are not paying management's salary, so I do not get this feeling here that management has a responsibility to the pilots? I don't remember "employee comfort" as a class I took for my MBA. That said, grumpy & tired employees don't do quality work, especially when they are the face the customer sees, and are detrimental. But....the only way their work environment will change is if the pilot group forces the action with their feet. If you don't like working there, quit and go somewhere else. At least SAABorooski had the cajones to do this. No pilots = no airline = broke shareholders. That get's people's attention.

Part of the problem contract wise is that most people at Mesa don't plan on staying, and therefore don't worry too much about the contract. That describes me and many of my coworkers. Right or wrong, it's definitely a factor. Personally, I'd rather have the same contract and know I'll have a job until I've built up enough time to move on. That certainly doesn't mean I'm against a better contract.

Unfortunetly I bet a lot of guys feel like that so nothing is ever done. The problem arises when CA's are there for a while, they can't move on to the MAJORS for whatever reason and they are stuck with ****ty working conditions until CAL(insert your #1 airline here) calls them.

Some intelligent posts here and some narrow minded preachy posts as well.

#1 For starters the more bad press regional airlines get the better. If a company cannot fill new hire classes everybody wins, when it comes to negotiation time. (At least in theory)

#2 Some say joe mesa pilot should quit because conditions suck there. Do you really think a guy making 80K, w/ good seniority, bills to pay and a family to feed, is going to quit because he has to fly these sh!t shifts only 4 times a month???????? I suppose the answer is for that pilot to quit and go to SKW and make 18K his first year and by year 5 still make less than he is at Mesa rates in the 700 or 900. (hold your horses sky pilots simply making a point here)

#3 To my knowledge these crap CDO shifts are a recent creation by the geniuses in scheduling and only occur out of the PHX domicile. (also it's my understanding colgan has similar practices)

#4 Let's not forget a major reason why mesas contract sucks is because of Freedom A list 4-5 years ago. (look at what SKY mgmt is doing to ASA right now)

#5 Most guys at mesa do vote with their feet and quit. That's why upgrades are so quick.

Conclusion rather than complain about pilots vs pilots lets.................
A. Fix the longevity scales. (Then pilots in general could quit at will)
B. Get more press on this article both at the national level and PHX Arizona region.

Hope this isn't to preachy just my two cents ;)

I agree with the leg length. Also, just having to do one leg in the morning is crucial to avoiding extreme fatigue situations. Again, a strong contract can make CDO's beneficial to those who want them, but expensive enough for the company to try to avoid them.

WTF this video was my idea, i contacted dateline about RJ pilots and told them the same thing and they gave me a generic bullcrap email saying thank you for your interest in the show.

anyone who has anything to say but Kudos to this report needs to smarten up.
this is the video that could finally start the chain reaction this industry has desperately needed,
send the link to everyone you know and tell them to call the FAA and say "im not flying on codeshare airlines when i know half the kids are fatigued!!!!!!!!!!"


on another note, why aint the video working anymore?

uuuummmmm what video are you talking about???

Still working...

I think the point is missed here, it's not a report about Mesa, this stuff happens almost everywhere in the regional industry. Sans Camping trips, the FAR rest regs are most of the problem and they are a joke.


As far as strinking goes, that won't happen until we get a government that cares about safety and quality of life for people. A couple of million stranded passengers does not make for a popular president.

all i get is the indian casino advertisement but the video doesnt play, it was working when i first viewed it 3 days ago? did anyone save it

Its "Native American" hehe

I think you need Windows Media Player to view it. Thats what mine came up on. For my 2 cents.... That should be played on ABC evening news all around the country. I thought it was great.

Asa had many cdos. I remember on reserve I would get one once in a while and I would immediatly call in sick if they stuck me with one.

Well I'm an Idiot it's working now.

Hmmm. I suggest you start monitoring the upper half of the mesa seniority list. There are not a lot of guys leaving for major airline jobs...as best I could tell the small amount of attrition was retirements, military leave, medicals, and career changers (out of aviation). But if you ask around you will find many, many capatins that have interviewed and been declined by SWA.

Don't kid yourself about your chances of getting on with a major...they are low in general, and especially low at mesa.

How long are you willing to hang around mesa under the current conditions to find out?

Note: Onviously none of this applies if you have a very well connected relative in upper management at a major airline...in that case you just need 1000 pic.