Are tired pilots compromising our safety?

[NitroNutter]

Originally Posted by Slyder

Do tired truck drivers compromise our safety when were heading down the A45....

Short answer.. yes...

Tiredness is a safety issue just about anywhere and is very common. Its the reason for the casue that needs addressing, its a very serious problem which I dont believe any capitalism based society can resolve it. The reason for the cause is one and the same as to why most goods today are designed to breakdown at some point rather than, achieve the excellence that it is capable of, it needs breakdowns so it can reduce life span while making the lifespan appear acceptable. More is spent today on ensuring components and goods have a break point than is spent on ensuring goods and their components general break point is acceptable. The excuse used most of the time blaming it on end users to systems today are more complex is nothing but a misnomer to avoid the truth.

The reason is greed, the need to show profits rather than product performance etc. A product which sells and breaks is far more desirable to a company than a product which sells less but has a much higher reliability rate. This is also a huge watse in resources. One of the big fors for capitalism is to reduce such wastage as available funds is what should be the restricting factor, it has however been turned around and has become one of the biggest reasons for excess waste of the planets resources as it has created a throwaway society instead of one which looks for the utmost quality. The more disposable society becomes, the more is turned over in finance so the cycle has actually began turning in the opposite direction it should be, and mankind is supposedly the most intelligent species here ?

The root:
Why pay workers a proper wage for a set number of hours in a week which means you would need more staff, when you can very easily employ 25% less staff, pay them less initially and offer the extra wages in overtime, its all part of cost cutting excercises rather than improving quality of service or goods. excercises.

This is also the very practice that leads to parents having less time and patience for their children, so proper guidence and better family values are much less likely, kids have less time with the role models they should be looking at and more time to roam around freely and mix with role models that create the undesirable elements in society. It is often said, a mans misfortune is often of his own doing, well the same goes for a society.

[Stuart]

The problem is that with the increasingly low prices people are expecting to pay for air travel (which are falling far faster than the costs), airlines will cut corners.

One way they can do this is to ensure that their planes and pilots are on the ground for as little time as possible. One obvious side effect of this is that pilots may not be getting as much relaxation time as they really need.

However, when on the flight deck, it should be OK for one pilot to take a nap, as long as the other is awake to cope with any emergencies the autopilot can't.

We had all better pray they haven't cut maintenance back as far as Micheal Crichton hints in his book, Airframe. I don't think they have, although I suspect they have cut it back as far as they can legally.

[Chrysalis]

NitroNutter has it all in one, we in the corp era where profit and growth is king, how common is it now that we expect every adult to work and overtime should be expected for a good salary.

Companies often discipline for time of even if genuine and will discipline for workers not doing overtim etc. All for increased profits as a result of recruiting less staff.