STRESS IN AVIATION?

Boarding was slow, Kunder (the cabin purser) had asked the Commander if he wanted to board with the door open or closed.

“Open please.”– He was a Commander of those who liked people, he liked to connect with his co-pilot, with the crew and seeing passengers.

Paulo (The co-pilot) was exhausted, he had been flying non-stop all summer and the time changes were killing him.
A strong summer in a charter company was to lose a couple of years of life in the future, he often told himself.

The passenger began boarding with the smile of someone going on vacation. An afternoon flight (the crew would still have to return on another flight, during a large part of the night in a day that without delay would last about 10 hours).

They were long days and difficult hours, but the market had to recover.
The passengers (many of the children and sometimes more parents) always took a look at the cockpit. Logically, it is the place where “the magic happens”.

Those guys make that giant steel and aluminum machine fly at almost a thousand an hour for hours.

At that moment a dissonance occurs many times.

The passengers think those cockpit guys are happy. Good job, good salary, good relationships and general happiness.
The guys who occupy the cockpit think (increasingly) that the schedules are getting worse, that the regulations barely protect them in hours of fatigue and recovery and that the companies (for the sake of recovering and competing with each other) pressure them to leave on time, do calculations quickly (but safely), eat and sleep as if they were computers and currently earn well below pre-pandemic times.

The auxiliary crew is not exempt from the “so-called market recovery” either.
Few means, (it is common the lack of personnel on the ground with the usual delays, the lack of material, fuel, etc.)

Long hours, often favors because “I don’t have anyone who can do it” denial of free (it is not an attack on the companies, here each section, each area tries to do its best and in QM we are in favor of people) and tight aircraft rotations, in order to provide more service to more people.

“Magic” is produced, yes, but at an excessive price. Competition between companies is great (and we predict that it will be even more) but between crew members it is non-existent.

Most cabin crews and pilots want the flights of other companies to leave on time, carry happy passengers and most importantly, arrive safely at the destination.

We do not compete, in aviation there is a feeling of “brotherhood” that is not so usual in other professions.

We wish each other a good flight between crew members from different companies who have never seen each other and perhaps will never see each other again, when we cross an airport.

One of QrewMentor’s great wishes, a utopia we know, is to eliminate that feeling of pressure exerted by the market and therefore the companies on their workers.

In a nice profession that should have only 2 types of problems:
Mechanical (less and less common thanks to maintenance) and Meteorology (Easier and easier to anticipate with technology).

The other problems, we should try to minimize them as much as possible.

So that “the magic” continues.

Until then find peaceful skies

Enrique. QrewMentor Team.