NEWS FLASH
Wizz Air is facing a backlash from pilot unions after the airline's boss appeared to call on crew to work through fatigue. CEO Jozsef Varadi said staff should go "the extra mile" when tired so that the airline could avoid cancelling flights. Pilot unions said flying when fatigued is dangerous and his comments showed a "deficient safety culture". But Wizz Air said Mr Varadi was addressing all workers not just pilots. On Wednesday, Mr Varadi told workers, "Now that everyone is getting back into work, I understand that fatigue is a potential outcome of the issues but once we are starting stabilising the rosters, we also need to take down the fatigue rate. I mean, we cannot run this business when every fifth person of a base reports sickness because the person is fatigued. We are all fatigued but sometimes it is required to take the extra mile”. Mr Varadi added, "The damage is huge when we are cancelling the flights, it's huge. It is reputational damage of the brand and it is the other financial damage, transactional damage because we have to pay compensation for that". The European Cockpit Association, which has been pushing for union recognition at Wizz Air, shared a short clip of Mr Varadi's address. It said the comments encouraged pilots to fly when fatigued, and called on regulators to step in. Wizz Air denied that Mr Varadi was specifically targeting pilots but was speaking to all staff. It said in a statement, "Our crew unavailability has been very low, at 4%. In this context, going the extra mile to minimise disruption was discussed. What this does not mean is compromising safety. Wizz Air and the airline industry are highly regulated, and safety has, and always will be, our first priority”. It added, "This clip has been edited from an all staff briefing - not pilots only, but also cabin crew and all office employees - on key business updates and current challenges facing aviation". Wizz Air boasts bases in Skopje, Belgrade, Sarajevo and Tuzla in the former Yugoslavia.
Deficient safety culture alert!@WizzAir CEO encourages pilots to fly fatigued! It’s like handing the car keys to a drunk driver. @EASA step in! You are WIZZ’ oversight authority… pic.twitter.com/qdJdBVwH90
— European Pilots (@eu_cockpit) June 8, 2022
I might get a lot of hate, but it's the same with truck drivers; If they are in the legal operating window, I don't see the problem with them working. I'm tired and I still need to go to work, even if I'm a bus driver. If they start to allow them calling sick days for being tired, everyone will do it...
ReplyDeleteIf you're tired - you deserve a break.
DeleteLuckily, understanding of human factors in safety critical environments such as transport (yes, including buses) has developed, that we understand that a fatigued person will make much more mistakes than a rested one.
DeleteThere is a legal requirement for airlines to operate a fatigue risk management system, as well as a legal requirement for every crew member to not report for work, if they are not fit to fly. The statement from this muppet of a CEO is similar to saying that employees should just break the law, written with safety in mind, so they don't have to hire more staff.
Everyone is tired in my office, but asking for days off because you are tired would be rejected. If you are tired for 8 hours work a day, you should organize better and go to bed earlier :)
DeleteAl ne vozis iza sebe 200 ljudi kroz kurolomiju od vremena. Malo je ipak razlika
DeleteIf you fall asleep at the office, what would happen? I guess all people around you will stay alive?
DeleteAgain backlash of the attempt to cut worker's rights and lobby out the worst FTL possibile... All in order to give the impoverished working class an illusion of having a living standard
DeleteNow there is back lash...
Live with it!
And you forget that your office day is 8hr long, ours is anywhere from 8 up to 13h... With irregular shift and can be up to 6 days in a row.. You go to your office 6 days in a row for 12hr and let me know how you feel on Sunday morning.
Delete@Anon 12:15: As a crew member (pilot or cabin crew), you can work up to 15 hours a day, a total of 60 hours per week. Shift patterns are effectively 24/7, i.e. you can start the work at 2am first day, finish at 10am, go to work again the same day at 10pm, finish at 8am, start work next day at 3 am, etc.
DeleteNot really a 9-5 in an office, is it?
yes!!! as well as, if you screw up in will not do such a damage as if you were a pilot.
Deleteif you screw up company may lose some money... but if a pilot screws up he can kill more than 100 people so...
shut the f*** up with this @anon 10:42
Its more then obvious that some of the posters here are aviation enthusiasts and amaters while some are professionals working in the industry. No wonder people post all kind of comments here...
Delete"The damage is huge when we are cancelling the flights, it's huge". I suppose the damage is even greater when accidents and incidents occur. And the reputation can easily go down...
ReplyDeletePilots are drama queens. Wizz is a successful airline with a fantastic safety track record
ReplyDeleteAnd if a pilot is burned out he can't make many for you for a much longer period.. Businesses can be run in different ways....
DeleteAnd the way to keep that fantastic safety record is to have fatigued people fly the aircraft?
DeleteHm...
No it just means that they are not overworked and fatigued under current conditions. This just looks like them trying to get less work for the same money
DeleteAnd what suggests they are not overworked and fatigued? Because there hasn't been any accidents yet?
DeletePeople commenting on this website give off a concerning neo-liberal, head up the ass blockhead vibes.
DeleteSomeone wants 100M bonus for doubling the airline. Greed is good, safety is just a burden.
ReplyDeleteTypical CEO statement who would of course prefer pilots to work even harder. The situation for the flight personnel is often unacceptable because the whole system is now so stretched. A pilot error can be fatal. An office error is not. In addition, flights tire differently than office work.
ReplyDeleteThere are 2 sides to the coin. Many people today are no longer willing to work really hard, but on the other hand, companies have nothing to complain about when they treat employees like number factors and don't give them proper appreciation. It's always a take and give. Unfortunately, Western society in particular only knows the take nowadays
I will not feel comfortable flying with Wizz this days. I may change the carrier. It is not all in low prices. A bit higher rates can mean more security. Pretty bad for Wizz's reputation.
ReplyDeleteThey denied that he was specifically addressing pilots (but all employees). 95% of the employees of Wizz Air are crew members. Yes, the majority of them are cabin crew but Wizz Air don't want them to fly fatigued either, do they? He spoke about "roster", "reporting fatigue", "base" etc. Office staff has none of those (and being fatigued causing cancellations - again, something not happening with office staff). He was clearly talking about crew (pilots included), any attempt to deny this is pathetic (by the way the spokesperson have zero clue about aviation as she was hired from an electricity company). The case is quite simple: the behaviour of Wizz CEO and management towards employees made them hated by everyone. For a long time they could find new people to replace the ones leaving but that time was over. The overpaid ragtag management hired from all over the world is of no use at all if no one want to work for them. Fear culture and hatred towards the management are not the characteristics of a good airline but an ex-communist company. Hopefully Varadi will be moved from the way by the shareholders.
ReplyDeleteCame here to say exactly that. Bases, rosters and fatigue reports definitely don't refer to all the employees. Imagine, he said there's no lack of staff, while they're so desperate to find people to operate on their off days they're now paying 300€ for you to accept to fly on your off. On top of that, they're flying in people from other bases on other airlines just so they can have somebody to operate the flight after having no crew on standby. But yeah sure, there's plenty of staff bro, whatever you say.
Delete200 flights cancelled for lack of crew only last weekend. Not for lack of airport staff and ATC controllers but actual Wizz Air flight deck and cabin crew. They can deny it as long as they want but this level of disruption can't be covered. And it will only get worse as they raise the number of flights in the next months. The thing will hit the fan soon and it will be a painful lesson.
DeleteHe clearly made a silly comment without thinking about what he was saying. Wizz Air is facing HUGE issues in the UK and their brand is terminally damaged in London Gatwick. So he is probably very stressed and he should take a break himself, to stop himself from making such stupid comments. Wizz is seriously struggling at the moment.
ReplyDeleteDoncaster, Gatwick, Cardiff... what's going on there? Lack of crew? How did they schedule flights without taking it in consideration? The worst part is they are cancelling flights 2-3 hours before, at least do it 1-2 days in advance.
DeleteDo you actually read any news 16:58 or you another stubborn Macedonian or a former Jat comrade? In the UK there are currently huge issues due to the lack of staff in the airports. Didn't you see what happened in Gatwick? What about the UK leisure airports???
DeleteThanks God airlines like Wizzair do not the wise advice coming from you!!
They cancelled at least 10 flights during the single week they stayed in Doncaster after the base closure was announce. On some days all Wizz Air UK flights were cancelled (along with some Wizz Hungary ones). These were all med sun flights, the number of people left stranded at the last minute was staggering. It was not for airport staff and ATC but quite simply because lack of Wizz crew. The chief pilot and chief purser of WUK resigned. The amount of delays and cancellations in Luton and Gatwick causes trouble for the airport operators. The closure of Doncaster will not help at all as most crew will not follow them to another base overnight. More pain for the passengers will follow.
DeleteHow could this happen on such short notice though, it's insane. Hard to comprehend such level of incompetence.
DeleteRyanair has just as bad , if not worse working ethics!
ReplyDeleteHow many of their crew Ryanair let go in 2020? You don't see their CEO on video pushing pilots to fly fatigued...
DeletePeople here insanely commenting about how pilots are greedy. Oh boy, why don't they just do this job for 15min? Lol! Some anonymous keyboard beta warrior lecturing about pilots...do those betas know how many fatal accidents involve pilot error and fatigue? Do they know that some of them spent long periods not seeing their families? This is one of the world most difficult and stressful jobs in the world. Yes, they deserve £120k!!
ReplyDeletePilots are not greedy, Wizz CEO is. If you missed the news last summer: Wizz Air will pay CEO 100 million pounds if he can turn Wizz market value to almost 12 billion pounds over the next five years.
DeleteThat's why he wants pilots to work longer, so he can buy a bigger yacht one day.
Bases, rosters and fatigue reports definitely don't refer to all the employees. It's clearly directed towards staff on the line. Imagine, he said there's no lack of staff, while they're so desperate to find people to operate on their off days they're now paying 300€ for you to accept to fly on your off. On top of that, they're flying in people from other bases on other airlines just so they can have somebody to operate the flight after having no crew on standby. But yeah sure, there's plenty of staff bro, whatever you say.
ReplyDeleteGuy is a sociopat. Tries to swap any unfavourable situation to PR. Like OLeary.
ReplyDeleteThis is becoming a regular problem in all kind of transport, for example there are bus companies that are sending the same crew say today (Sat) on 12-13 hr MKD - SRB route and getting back in the afternoon the next day (Sun) and arriving back in the early morning (Mon).
ReplyDeleteAnd in the afternoon the same two guys driving back again.And this is just one in a milion examples.
Then we have incidents and accidents, smuggling etc.
All because of sXitty salaries and zero working condition, often even the security checks and technical issues are skipped.
"Taking the extra mile" is not a good way of work if you don't compensate your employees.