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Low Cost Flights - are they dangerous?

A

ariegur

pfm Member
I am in shock because of an article in channel 1 describing Low Cost Flights (LCF) as dangerous.

First they described the growth of the LCF telling that few months ago in one day there were more LCF flights in the skies of Europe than regular flights.

Then they described how LCF companies are killing regular companies like Monarch, Air Berlin and Al Italia.

Next step was explaining the obvious, if you pay cheap you must understand that there are no free gifts...

The last and the frightening was telling about the pilots. In the regular companies, pilot must have 1,500 hours at least to get the job. In LCF, there are pilots with 300 hours of experience only(!!!) and pilots that are paying to the LCF companies in order to fly jets there. Many of the pilots are not employees of the LCF companies, they are self employees who are working by invoices!!!

Have you heard these things?

Arye
 
Being self employed in the UK is common. I'm self employed, and better qualified than many employees doing my job. So that's nothing. You still have to follow the rules.

as for flying hours, the industry is heavily regulated, they have rules and examination s to test competence. I'm not worried. I do know that the LCAs pay pilots a lot less than was the norm a few years ago.
 
Yes in Europe. 300 hours for a newly qualified first officer is, and has always been, permissible. Captains require many more hours, 1500 being the minimum they need to even give them the licence to take command of a passenger aircraft, but typically they’ll have several multiples of that before they get their command, even in a LCA. Sounds like the programme might have been a tad over excited.
 
stevec67 said:
Being self employed in the UK is common. I'm self employed, and better qualified than many employees doing my job. So that's nothing. You still have to follow the rules.

as for flying hours, the industry is heavily regulated, they have rules and examination s to test competence. I'm not worried. I do know that the LCAs pay pilots a lot less than was the norm a few years ago.
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a
And therefore, they explained in the article, rejected pilots from regular companies are flying jets in the LCAs.

Arye
 
Unless you get the first job you apply for, you've been rejected. I'm sure that there are people rejected by BA who then work for another premium airline.
 
Google is your friend, Israel may have lower restrictions than Europe though.

https://www.flying-start.org/commercial-sector/aeroplane-a-licences/

In short it is around:

>200 flying hours to be a pilot
>1500 flying hours to become co-pilot & captain

Most UK airlines require a min of 3000 hours to be a captain though.

From a quick scan it looks like you would need >650 flight hours to pilot multi engine, multi pilot planes like an A320 etc.
 
Bob McC said:
So everyone who has ever “failed” an interview is incompetent eh?
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No, it is a question of ability to hold a job that involves safety of people. I want that the best pros will fly the jet that I am flying in. I don't want that a pilot who was not good enough in one company and therefore was rejected there will fly me in LCA.

Arye
 
ariegur said:
No, it is a question of ability to hold a job that involves safety of people. I want that the best pros will fly the jet that I am flying in. I don't want that a pilot who was not good enough in one company and therefore was rejected there will fly me in LCA.

Arye
Click to expand...

Then hire your own pilot and buy your own plane, you can ensure all your requirements are met then ;-)

To be more serious, we are not talking about inability to hold a job, we are talking about an interview. If you are a premium airline and hire 10 pilots a year, there may be 100 pilot qualifying per year and if you hire based on interview you are not just measuring flying ability but personal skills and interviewing skills as well. Just because number 11 on the list did not get hired does not mean he is a lesser flyer, just that the first airline to interview him liked 10 others better, maybe because they fitted the corporate image better.

I am far more worried about the poor standard of drivers on the roads rather than airline pilots. You are considerably more likely to die on the roads than in a poorly flown aeroplane.
 
ariegur said:
No, it is a question of ability to hold a job that involves safety of people. I want that the best pros will fly the jet that I am flying in. I don't want that a pilot who was not good enough in one company and therefore was rejected there will fly me in LCA.

Arye
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There can, by definition, be only one “best” pilot in the world.

Getting from whichever A, to whichever B, using only that pilot, could be a tad tedious for you.
 
ariegur said:
No, it is a question of ability to hold a job that involves safety of people. I want that the best pros will fly the jet that I am flying in. I don't want that a pilot who was not good enough in one company and therefore was rejected there will fly me in LCA.

Arye
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In your shoes I'd look at the safety record of the airlines concerned vs traditional model ones. And then I'd consider the trustworthiness of the media channel you've been watching and wonder what else they try to scare you about without foundation.
 
cutting42 said:
Then hire your own pilot and buy your own plane, you can ensure all your requirements are met then ;-)

To be more serious, we are not talking about inability to hold a job, we are talking about an interview. If you are a premium airline and hire 10 pilots a year, there may be 100 pilot qualifying per year and if you hire based on interview you are not just measuring flying ability but personal skills and interviewing skills as well. Just because number 11 on the list did not get hired does not mean he is a lesser flyer, just that the first airline to interview him liked 10 others better, maybe because they fitted the corporate image better.

I am far more worried about the poor standard of drivers on the roads rather than airline pilots. You are considerably more likely to die on the roads than in a poorly flown aeroplane.
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If I were hiring a pilot, or any skilled tradesperson, I would want to see hard evidence of competence. Interviews, in isolation, are the very worst way to hire anyone.
 
My opinion, the airline industry in the UK is in a race to the bottom. Costs everywhere are being slashed, trying to use the like of Ryan air as a financial model to compete with.
The obvious risk is that one of the areas being cutback will be aircrew. Their recruitment policy, training standards and experience levels. This will impact on safety standards. The airlines will continue to get away with it until that dreadful day when an accident happens through human error/ lack of experience.
Hopefully, the airlines will be able to fudge along from one day to the next without such a catastrophe occurring & the signs of inexperience will only be visible to those within the industry.
 
Cav said:
Cost cutting to worry about is not the aircrew but maintenance surely...
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Yes, obviously maintenance must be of the highest quality.
However, an emergency in the flight deck, or a customer having a medical emergency on board etc etc. Poor quality, inexperienced or poorly led crew could potentially lead to life/death consequences.
 
ariegur said:
I am in shock because of an article in channel 1 describing Low Cost Flights (LCF) as dangerous.

First they described the growth of the LCF telling that few months ago in one day there were more LCF flights in the skies of Europe than regular flights.

Then they described how LCF companies are killing regular companies like Monarch, Air Berlin and Al Italia.

Next step was explaining the obvious, if you pay cheap you must understand that there are no free gifts...

The last and the frightening was telling about the pilots. In the regular companies, pilot must have 1,500 hours at least to get the job. In LCF, there are pilots with 300 hours of experience only(!!!) and pilots that are paying to the LCF companies in order to fly jets there. Many of the pilots are not employees of the LCF companies, they are self employees who are working by invoices!!!

Have you heard these things?

Arye
Click to expand...
I’ve been flown by Israeli pilots in small, inexpensive airlines in Africa. I didn’t stop to ask them how many hours theyd clocked up and we took off and landed in some scary airfields. I worked on the principle they wanted to stay above ground at least as much as I did.
 
one of the cheapest LCF transcontinental carriers is WOW - an icelandic airline - i like the fact that they use brand new Airbus craft ... a LOT of the new LCF carriers seem to do this too - it gives me at least the confidence that danger won't likely come from equipment failure (rather than flying in tired old shoddy boeings). But yeah ... overworked/overtired and underpaid/underexperienced pilots can be a big problem and the reason for the bulk of crashes ... one of the worst was air france 447 which stalled and plummeted straight into the ocean because the inexperienced new copilot didn't realize the plane was already pitched upward ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
 
Simply put, no they’re not dangerous.

I frequently fly Ryanair and Jet2 with absolute confidence I’ll get to my destination safely, Neither airline has ever had a fatality or even serious incident. The closest was a Ryanair 737 that suffered a bird strike a few years ago on takeoff, it limped back and landed safely but the aircraft was damaged beyond economical repair and was/is now used for crew training in Italy. Not a bad record for Ryanair given that they’re one of the worlds largest carriers!
People can criticise their customer service all they like but not their safety. Same goes for most similar European budget airlines.
 
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