SAA cabin crew grounds flight

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 20 May 2007, 12:12

How far can one go to srew up passengers? A new record has been set by the cabin crew from a SAA flight:

According to South African press coverage, a Washington-Jo'burg flight was put on hold for take off because of bad weather. The 14 cabin crew attendants told the pilot that they refused to exceed the 14 hour working limit. However, international rules state that the pilot has the right to allow this for 3 more hours, which he did. But yet the flight attendants refused to go on with the flight.

Result: flight cancelled. 244 angry pax, some of which had to spend the night at the airport due to the lack of beds in Washington.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Afri ... 83,00.html

beaucaire · Post by **beaucaire** » 20 May 2007, 14:20

They should be sacked immediately !
If you accept to work for an airline that has knowingly financial troubles one would expect some form of solidarity .
Can't help - but they must have had some trade-union hot-head on the crew who read the rules by the letter .As usual - the passengers are the hostages !!

744rules · Post by **744rules** » 20 May 2007, 17:11

beaucaire wrote:They should be sacked immediately !
If you accept to work for an airline that has knowingly financial troubles one would expect some form of solidarity .
Can't help - but they must have had some trade-union hot-head on the crew who read the rules by the letter .As usual - the passengers are the hostages !!

This has nothing to do with financial troubles or solidarity or whatever.

What's the point of making up rules if you can bent them if needed?
Of course it's a pitty the pax are victim, not to mention the ground staff who has to try to accomodate all crew and pax.

But isn't the cabin crew for the security/safety ? I know the workload on long hauls gives less stress than a short haul, but who (even here on the forum) has a DUTY time in excess of 14hours ??

TexasGuy · Post by **TexasGuy** » 20 May 2007, 17:41

I think they are within thier rights to refuse to go over thier duty day, PERIOD!
Cabin crew are humans, not robots! Safety is paramount. End of discussion.

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 20 May 2007, 18:17

TexasGuy wrote:I think they are within thier rights to refuse to go over thier duty day. Cabin crew are humans, not robots! Safety is paramount. End of discussion.

1. if safety is the paramount, then the discussion indeed is over very quickly: it's 14 hours, unless the pilots amends it to 17 hours. What this pilot did. And his decision was not that strange: pax were in their seats, fasten seatbelt signs were on, and the plane was queuing up for take off. So the extra time for the crew was to sit and wait for take off - but it was this last uneforeseen waiting time that was too much for the crew. But then, the pilot overruled their request so the crew had to go on with the flight.

2. or do you assume that the pilot is not concerned about safety?

3. we don't need robots: we need flight attendants who love their job and who respect the passengers. If a flight attendant finds out that he/she doenst' like his/her job, he/she has to leave. If the one hour extra is too much for them, why on earth did they become flight attendant on long international routes (SA/US)? Obviously, this kind of flight attendants is more interested in the spare time between two flights and the amount of pocket money they receive from the airline. Shame on them.

TBSC · Post by **TBSC** » 20 May 2007, 18:57

It is not the decision of the captain if the crew will extend their duty time, it's the decision of the crew. All cabin crew members has to agree with the extension one by one.
Safety is a different thing if you are sitting closed in a cockpit with a cup of cofee and your dinner, but flight attendants are amongst 300 angry people taking the whole stress and everything.
Cabin crew should decide voluntarily, and if the decision is negative, it is not against the rules at all. It's that simple.

Darjeeling · Post by **Darjeeling** » 20 May 2007, 18:57

LX-LGX wrote:
TexasGuy wrote:I think they are within thier rights to refuse to go over thier duty day. Cabin crew are humans, not robots! Safety is paramount. End of discussion.
1. if safety is the paramount, then the discussion indeed is over very quickly: it's 14 hours, unless the pilots amends it to 17 hours. What this pilot did. And his decision was not that strange: pax were in their seats, fasten seatbelt signs were on, and the plane was queuing up for take off. So the extra time for the crew was to sit and wait for take off - but it was this last uneforeseen waiting time that was too much for the crew. But then, the pilot overruled their request so the crew had to go on with the flight.

2. or do you assume that the pilot is not concerned about safety?

3. we don't need robots: we need flight attendants who love their job and who respect the passengers. If a flight attendant finds out that he/she doenst' like his/her job, he/she has to leave. If the one hour extra is too much for them, why on earth did they become flight attendant on long international routes (SA/US)? Obviously, this kind of flight attendants is more interested in the spare time between two flights and the amount of pocket money they receive from the airline. Shame on them.

Once again you're wrong mate. In your anti-crew quest, you forgot to mention two important things:
-If a "streched duty" rule is existant, then ALL the crew members have to agree with it. And they clearly have to say that they want to carry on.
- Each airline has its policy, but a pilot in charge will never interfere with the limits apllied for the cabin and vice-versa.
Think about it.

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 20 May 2007, 20:14

Off course I'm wrong: every time I mention that pax are once again innocent victim by staff's action, there are always some union fans here to correct me. Is it really that difficult for you to admit that some action indeed is over the limit?

And stay with the facts please - in this case this flight. The crew didn't had to work hard during the overtime: they didn't had to serve dinner, or even not an extra drink: pax were seated and the plane was just queuing for take off. And even so: if the extra hour was too dangerous, what would then happen in case of a delay at arrival, f.e. because JNB is closed because of fog?

The journalist from The Sunday Times has done some investigation, and he writes: "... The captain, however, has the discretion, according to SAA's Flight Operations manual as well as international Air Navigation Rules and Regulations, to extend duty time by up to three hours. And he exercised this right..." Allow me therefore to disagree if you say that it's actually the cabin crew who has the final decision.

- - -

I know SAA's long haul flights quite well, and I still remember the stopovers at SAL / Ilho do Sol during the African countries' sky embargo (specially Sudan) against South Africa. We had a double crew on board of those flights, and guess what? Except for the cockpit crew, most of them simply did both shifts (except for a short sleep). But then off course, SAA was about the art of flying, the love for the job and making it as comfortable as possible for the passengers.

JAF 23 · Post by **JAF 23** » 20 May 2007, 20:37

If i may ask you (LX-LGX), what is your authority in aviation?

744rules · Post by **744rules** » 20 May 2007, 21:31

LX-LGX wrote:Off course I'm wrong: every time I mention that pax are once again innocent victim by staff's action, there are always some union fans here to correct me. Is it really that difficult for you to admit that some action indeed is over the limit?.

It's not about the fact an action if over the limit or not. It's about the fact of bending the rules.
When applying a rule there are always people/facts that have or have no benefit. Compare it to the highway speed limit. You know you will be fined when caught over 120km/h. Why is 119 safe and 121 not ???

I've known it on several occasions a crew steps down because crew limitation times would have been exceeded after a delay (late inbound, technical, atc, .....)

At that stage of their duty time they did following
-get up
-get ready
-transport to the airport
-decide on final fuel

If now for some reason, they have a 2-3 hour delay, with 12hours of flying ahead, how "fresh" will they be upon arrival ? Not to mention enroute difficulties.

Oh, and by the way, I'm no union fan at all

grnkg · Post by **grnkg** » 20 May 2007, 22:13

Hello,

Isn't there at least some sort of authority inherent to the word "captain"?

Indeed, and not just some sort, but full authority!

This is how Collins dictionary describes the word "captain":

The officer in command of a civil aircraft, usually the senior pilot.

So, if he (the captain) wants to apply the rules (which I cannot believe the crew was not familiar with), in the best intrest of the company and the passengers, then every member of the crew has to comply with his decision.

Kind regards,
GR.

TBSC · Post by **TBSC** » 20 May 2007, 22:16

LX-LGX wrote:Off course I'm wrong: every time I mention that pax are once again innocent victim by staff's action, there are always some union fans here to correct me. Is it really that difficult for you to admit that some action indeed is over the limit?

Yes, this action - meaning the captain to decide if 14 crew members have to work or not, mainly if they have the right to say no - is indeed over the limit. But if a journalist - 99% of them are real aviation experts - says that is it right, then no doubt...

And if you ask me, the "art of flying" is not the overduty...

JAF 23 · Post by **JAF 23** » 20 May 2007, 23:45

It still isn't captains decision only... As said before, every member of the crew, from captain to junior stewardess has to approve the extra flight duty time, if 1, only 1 person don't want to do this, for whatever reason there might be, it's his or her right.
And o please, don't come here and say that they are obligated to do this overtime. You know what, these rules are made to avoid that cabin crew or cockpit crew start a duty that exceeds the acceptable safety limitations. And that isn't only for the crew, but more for the passengers.

Darjeeling · Post by **Darjeeling** » 21 May 2007, 14:43

LX, just a question, but do you spend your time by typing "crew" on Google's news section ? Is there an "historic" reason for this ? I'm not crew nor a crew union representative, but I find most of your posts too anti-crew oriented without having right legal arguments... dj.