Pilots at Qatar Airways say the state-owned airline is under-counting their work hours and ignoring complaints of fatigue - a safety breach that hurts staff health and risks passenger lives. The testimony demonstrates how worker abuse extends even to the Gulf nation’s high-skill industries, as Qatar Airways tries to minimise crew downtime. “This is obviously a huge health and safety issue for the pilots themselves - and the people they’re flying,” said Isobel Archer of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. The revelations come months before Qatar hosts its first World Cup with QA - as lead sponsor - hoping to be football’s carrier of choice. But pilots worry about the risks fans could run, saying ultra-long flights are now operated by short-staffed and exhausted crews, a pressure only made worse by the pandemic. “I fell asleep during the descent with 400 passengers on board,” recalled Erik of one such 20-hour flight that he landed safely at the carrier’s Doha base. “You can’t do anything. Your body is just screaming for rest. You feel the pain inside of your chest, and you’re unable to keep your eyes open,” the first officer told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, using a pseudonym so he could speak more freely. Erik and six other flight crew members said the airline’s work hours were driving them into exhaustion and that managers were refusing to give them enough rest. Many did not even file fatigue reports, fearing additional scrutiny from an airline that made thousands of staff redundant in the pandemic. Others said their reports were ignored or didn’t get rest to match the shift worked. “We’re overworked and fatigued – but I never filled out a fatigue report because I don’t want to be in the spotlight,” said Erik.<br/>
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Staff at Qatar Airways who vent work worries online say the state carrier is retaliating with legal threats and job cuts - part of a growing corporate trend to monitor and muzzle employees who dare speak out. Advocates say the carrier’s attempts to silence employees and delete critical posts - be it in private or public forums - contravenes staff rights to privacy and free expression. “It’s a very straightforward case of violating not just labour rights but human rights – the freedom of association and expression,” said Thulsi Narayanasamy, head of labour rights at the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, which tracks the human rights policies of companies worldwide. The airline, which sponsors the 2022 FIFA World Cup to be staged in Qatar, would not comment on allegations that it had closed down legitimate debate or sidelined those who led it. But advocates say its use of lawsuits and redundancies is part of a growing pattern by companies to monitor private chat by staff then unmask its anonymous online critics. “It’s incredibly sinister,” added Narayanasamy, who said the trend had ballooned during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to three current or former staff of the state-run airline who believe they were directly punished for voicing their worries online. In June, Qatar Airways filed a personal injury claim of more than $25,000 in a Los Angeles court against at least two anonymous accounts that had been posting on a forum known as the Professional Pilots Rumour Network, or PPRUNE. According to court documents, QA believed the two accounts belonged to employees who had shared “confidential information” about the firm’s hiring and firing processes.<br/>
Cathay Pacific is still facing an exodus of pilots in Hong Kong and management, seeing no let up in the trend, is considering hiring options to the combat depleted crew ranks, senior executives said at a company town hall Thursday, according to a person who attended the meeting. The carrier’s top management, including chief operations and service delivery officer Greg Hughes, told staff that an initial spike in pilot resignations last November had remained at high levels through January and is expected to continue to be high in coming months, the person said. Cathay said it “will do everything we can to maintain vital connections for passengers and cargo into and out of Hong Kong, including retaining, hiring and rehiring current and former Cathay pilots in Hong Kong.” “We have already resumed our pilot recruitment activities and this has generated significant interest within the Hong Kong pilot community and around the world,” the airline added. Hong Kong remains wedded to a Covid-zero strategy, isolated alongside China as the world’s biggest holdouts as other nations learn to live with the virus. A resurgence in community infections in the once-vibrant Asian financial hub, coupled with fresh curbs on a wide range of activities, continues to wear on the city’s residents. To combat the exodus in the cockpit, Cathay said it plans to hire back all available ex-pilots from its now-defunct sister airline Cathay Dragon by the end of March, without specifying the total, adding to the 130 it recently brought back, the person said. A further 140 new cadets will undergo training this year and ex-graduate aircrew will be taken on, the person added.<br/>
Qantas can turn a profit while flying far emptier planes than its rivals thanks to its aggressive pandemic cost-cutting drive, which analysts say will help shield it from competitors Virgin Australia, Rex Airlines and new challenger Bonza. As the Omicron wave again delays the aviation industry’s COVID-19 recovery, Jarden analyst Jakob Cakarnis estimates Qantas and its budget arm Jetstar are the carriers best placed to rebound after the group moved to cut its cost base by about $1 billion when the pandemic struck. On average, planes flying around Australia had passengers on 80 per cent of their seats before the pandemic and that has fallen to about 55 per cent over the past 12 months, Mr Cakarnis said, putting pressure on the airlines’ finances. Qantas’ two brands can fly profitably with the fewest passengers on board, he estimated, with Jetstar needing to fill only 43% of seats to break-even, and Qantas aircraft needing to fill 55%. In contrast, he estimated that Virgin’s break-even “load factor” was 76% while Rex – which last year launched jet services between capital cities to compete directly with Qantas and Virgin - needs to fill 80% of seats. Rex deputy chairman John Sharp said this estimate was “wrong by a wide margin” but would not provide the accurate figure. Across its two brands, Qantas’ break-even load factor had fallen from 57 to 49% (excluding fuel) thanks to its cost-cutting efforts, which included laying off almost one-third of its workforce. Virgin’s had increased by 6 percentage points despite also cutting costs since its stint in administration early in the pandemic, Cakarnis said, because it had also lowered its airfares. “Qantas is the best placed to weather the lower load factors realised during the ‘recovery phase’, based on our analysis,” said Cakarnis. “A combination of the lowest cost position for Jetstar and ongoing benefits from a corporate cost-out program for Qantas Domestic has put the business in a strong competitive position.”<br/>