Pilots of budget airlines such as Ryanair and Wizz Air regularly continue to work even though they are actually too ill or too tired to fly. In this way they seriously endanger flight safety. Pilots feel forced to work by the companies. Those who complain often lose their jobs; those who don’t fly don’t get paid.
This is evident from a report by TV journalists Bart Nijpels and Jan Salden for the current affairs section Zembla (BNN-VARA) that will be on TV on Thursday evening. Problems with pilot fatigue, the pressure from airlines on their pilots and poor employment contracts have been known for some time. According to Zembla, safety in European aviation has deteriorated over the past ten years.
In 2012, Nijpels already made a controversial documentary series KRO Reporter about the poor working conditions at Ryanair. The pilots who flew for the Irish company said at the time (anonymously) that they sometimes had to fly with too little fuel to save costs. That led to several incidents. It also regularly happened that they fell asleep during a flight due to fatigue.
The documentary makers spoke to dozens of pilots and cabin crew in recent months. They again said that they regularly fall asleep during a flight.
Zembla’s conclusions are consistent with independent research commissioned by the European Cockpit Association (ECA). In September, the European Pilots’ Association reported that three out of four pilots suffered from ‘micro-sleep’ at least once in the past four weeks. For a quarter this happened five or more times in those four weeks. ECA spoke to almost 6,900 pilots from 31 countries.
Flying on would have been criminal, like getting behind the wheel of a car while drunk
Mike Simkins former pilot
Zembla only got one pilot recognizable and on TV under his name. The rest were too afraid for their jobs and their further careers. Mike Simkins, a former pilot at the now bankrupt British holiday airline Thomas Cook, tells how he refused to fly one day because he was overtired. His employer then suspended him. Simkins challenged the suspension and won. “Flying on would have been criminal. As if I were going to get behind the wheel of a car drunk.”
Poor working conditions
Scientists and trade unions have long made a connection between over-fatigue, flight safety and ‘atypical’ employment contracts in aviation. Zembla will release the results of research by Karolinska University in Stockholm on this theme on Thursday.
One third of the 10,000 pilots surveyed by the university say that European aviation has become less safe. 80 percent of cabin crew and 66 percent of pilots surveyed by Swedish scientists believe that working conditions in European aviation have deteriorated.
Particularly at budget airlines such as Ryanair and Wizz Air, the cockpit and cabin crew have flexible employment contracts, often concluded for tax reasons in a country such as Ireland or Malta. There is false self-employment, zero-hour contracts and rest periods that do not count as working time. Airlines from the Middle East also receive this criticism, but Zembla does not mention this.
Sometimes young, novice pilots have to pay to be able to log their flying hours, keep their license or obtain certification for a certain type of aircraft. Pay to fly is called such a contract. In addition, the pilot is sometimes the person on board who pays the most for his seat.
In the years since Zembla’s Ryanair documentary in 2012, little has improved, sources tell the TV makers. In fact, the growth of Ryanair and Wizz Air means that more pilots and cabin crew are suffering from insecure, unsafe employment contracts. Other (budget) airlines also feel forced to compete with low-cost airlines and are also cutting staff costs.
Pilot organization ECA published a new version of its in December 2022 European Airlines’ Social Rating; that is research into the best and worst employers in aviation. Ryanair and Wizz Air get very poor marks. “Working for Wizz Air is a nightmare,” says an anonymous pilot. “Everyone is forced to fly the maximum. Pilots and cabin crew are afraid of feeling sick, exhausted or… unfit to fly to report. Anyone who engages a union is discriminated against or fired.”
Supervisor must intervene
In the documentary, unions such as the Association of Dutch Airline Pilots (VNV) and European trade unions say that supervision in Europe is failing in this area. The VNV wants all ‘atypical’, insecure employment contracts to be banned.
The European aviation regulator EASA should intervene, the unions say, but that organization is falling short. Pilots say in the Zembla broadcast that EASA does not take reports of occurrences or safety risks seriously. EASA is said to be too financially dependent on airlines, airports and aircraft manufacturers to take drastic action.
“The report gives a shocking picture of how certain airlines can ignore safety standards like cowboys,” says Camiel Verhagen (VNV). “Due to a culture of fear and shady employment structures, such as bogus self-employment, reporting unsafe situations by pilots is punished with dismissal. If they fly tired or sick under pressure, this is an immediate safety risk and EASA should take action. This report shows a complete lack of urgency among European policymakers.”
The Dutch chairman of the ECA, Otjan de Bruijn, said: “These are worrying signals and clear indications that fatigue safety risks are not well managed at many European airlines. Here too, EASA is clearly making mistakes and this is a direct danger to flight safety.”