Pilots Tiredness

Being a pilot maybe a common dream among young boys, the reality of the job nowadays makes it so that pilots themselves wish they spent more time dreaming. Or sleeping, actually.

One of the effects of the development of low-cost carriers in Europe has been the overall deterioration of pilots’ (and crews) working and living conditions. Taking into account the average low-cost business models of cutting costs at all possible points, it’s not particularly surprising. More than that, young companies, with no history of heavy unionism, have sprung up in a context when there were more pilots available on the market than needed and European regulations allowed for easier cross-border hiring. As a consequence, young low-cost companies have been able to impose standards much worse (from pilot’s point of view) than traditional carriers offered. But the low-cost airlines were hiring, and that was always better than unemployment for pilots.

Now, however, problems are starting to surface. It’s not only the stories of pilots and crews being underpaid, overworked or poorly managed. The larger problem behind that doesn’t regard the particular lives of pilots and cabin crews, but the security of passengers. Adequately qualified pilots are being pushed to their limits on a regular basis and that cannot have a positive impact on the industry. As a consequence, minor or casual problems that arise with any regular companies, become widespread and common for low-cost companies.

For instance, a common matter for traditional carriers regards pilots’ tiredness. Even though there have been huge progress made in aircraft conception over the last couple of decades, flying a machine machine weighting several hundred tons over hundred of miles is no casual matter, even if that’s your career. For that reason, it is indispensable that there are at least two persons flying the plane at any time and that those pilots remain alert and ready to address any situation they may be confronted with. The problem of pilots’ tiredness and sleep pattern used to be reserved to long-haul flights, where after a few hours in command, it becomes necessary for pilots to take breaks, nap and restore themselves so they can keep their concentration.

For these reasons, pilot’s working hours are tightly framed by international regulation, and it is common practice that airlines enforce strict minimum break times for pilots on long-haul flights. However, until the arrival of low-cost airlines in Europe, the question of pilot’s tiredness on short-haul flights was hardly ever raised. Understandably, with most short haul flights during below two or three hours, pilot’s shouldn’t need to take long breaks.

The problem arose as low-cost airlines pushed their aircraft and pilots to the maximum possible rate of usage. Companies like Ryanair impose 25 minutes maximum turnaround time so that they can cram more flights within the day. This maximizes aircraft utilization and available seats but completely forgoes basic human needs, like sleep. In the end, pilots may only fly short-haul but end up spending as much time in their cockpit over 24 hours as pilots flying long-haul. Pilots at Ryanair and easyJet are known to regularly reach their yearly authorized maximum 900 hours of flight time well before the end of the year.

As a consequence there has been a multiplication of instances of pilots snoozing behind their commands. Earlier this year, a study published by British pilot union BALPA revealed that one in five pilots felt like falling asleep while on duty on a weekly basis. That’s a whooping 20% of pilots admitting excessive tiredness during working hours. Still, the most shocking part of that study is that it was exclusively led on a sample of 492 easyJet pilots, meaning that the problem was clearly not restricted to long-haul pilots but widespread among pilots in the low-cost airline industry.

Perhaps the worst in all of this is that pilots have very few options in this situation. Most low-cost airlines are at war with unions, and some of them – such as Ryanair – don’t even recognize unions. As a result, pilots can only rely on their management’s understanding to hope for a change in the situation. Something that’s unlikely to happen any time soon. EasyJet publicly rejected the report’s findings, while Ryanair didn’t even mention it. From the relation the Irish low-cost entertains with its pilots, we may infer that there are few chances pilots may see a betterment in their situation. Let’s not hope we will have to wait for a major incident to see a change in the way low-cost carriers manage their pilots.