by If – like most people – you’ve flown on a budget airline, you know the drill. We are all grimaced at paying £3.50 for a cup of scorching tea, which requires 10 mugs of milk to be drinkable. We’ve gotten over the need to pay extra to carry a backpack like a small cat. We’ve crossed our legs as a group of stags in tutus queued up to use the loo.
But what is it like to be behind the cockpit door? Who is that quiet, invisible presence, that life of class in this seemingly luxurious environment, in which we entrust our lives for an hour or two?
After training with the RAF in the late 1980s and then flying with Air 2000 (later First Choice) in the 1990s, and Emirates for over a decade, our unnamed pilot went on to join a famous carrier at a low cost.
From unrealistic schedules to shoddy support systems, paying for coffee and what pilots really do to boozy passengers, our anonymous captain gives a rare insight into the low-cost pile.
The shifts are good
For this pilot, it wasn’t the pride of having a particular logo, but the practicality of a fixed pattern that first attracted him to the world of budget flying.
“Low-cost airlines tend to have a fixed roster pattern: five on, four on, in my case. It is attractive because we can plan our lives around it for at least a year ahead. In other companies with ‘variable’ rosters, sometimes only published a month in advance, it can be very frustrating to plan for events such as weddings.
“I also liked that most days it is planned to be back at base around midnight, alternating between early and late starts. The 5/4 pattern means you get 13 days off while booking five days of annual leave,” he says.
The pilots are running the show
The support systems, he says, are very different between low-cost airlines and legacy long-haul airlines.
“At low cost, the pilots and crew are really running the show. It means minimal company intervention in the normal course of things. When there is a problem, such as delays or diversions due to weather or technical problems, the wheels start to come off as they operate their support systems on very light staffing levels.
“They have relatively weak processes for keeping in touch with teams, and we often have to be very proactive to keep the program going,” he says.
Schedules are impossible
“The schedules are usually very tight, even unrealistic, which means that if there is a flight delay early in the morning, it is almost impossible to clear the time,” says our anonymous pilot.
“Often, at the end of an early shift, we are handing the aircraft over to the evening crew already quite late. During peak summer time, there are often not many extra staff available to call out when there is an incident. Legacy airlines tend to spend a lot more money on their operations; they have a very different pricing structure, after all. I have worked at Emirates for 11 years and their ability to respond positively, and even anticipate issues, is amazing.”
Morale? Pilots are good at crying
“Morale is hard. If you ask a 23-year-old student, who has just qualified, he or she will probably tell you how amazing it is. Give them three years and they’ll soon be moaning about the repeated starts, the sometimes minimal rest between duties and the often late peak summer finish. Pilots are generally good at crying.
“It also varies with the base: at big airports with a lot of aircraft, it’s a more impersonal environment than a small one with only five or six. We don’t provide food on board, like you do with other airlines, so we have to bring our own food, and the company charges us for a cup of coffee. This means keeping fees down, of course, and the companies usually say that rewards cover expenses that other types of carriers would normally pay for.”
The pay is good (but there are extras)
“The pay is pretty good, it’s true, but you work hard for it. We buy our own uniforms, we pay for our annual medical and security badges and, at some airports, we pay for staff parking.
“If they send us to a far location to do simulator training, we are obliged to pay for accommodation ourselves. The team travel is decent, but not as good as the big carriers.”
Fat passengers don’t bother the pilot
“Unruly and difficult passengers are not a problem on the flight deck until they endanger the safety of passengers, crew or aircraft. Certainly, since 9/11, we do not go out of the cockpit to remonstrate with passengers; we have to leave it to the cabin crew. If passengers become a threat, we will begin to plan for diversion to an airport where they can be removed and possibly prosecuted.”
