AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

As flight crew on cargo aeroplanes, we are often seen as second-class pilots by many in the industry – not “good enough” for passengers and without all the glamour that accompanies airline pilots in Hollywood movies.

However, only known to few fellow aviators, our life in the shadows can be quite interesting and our operational environment is often far more challenging than that of the “regular” airline pilot. It is therefore nearly amusing that our real value is only seen, when everybody else has been grounded. The importance of just-in-time supply chains suddenly means that without freighter airplanes – and their crews ready to fly during a pandemic – we could face even bigger problems in the near future than what we are seeing now.

To many of my colleagues this circumstance gives a feeling of pride and confidence. We are not only happy to see that our work is finally appreciated, but we are also glad to do it. Nobody is asking about long-shifts, short-term rescheduling or extensive time away from home in an ever changing and complex environment, where travel has become nearly impossible and definitely cumbersome.

With an international pilot corps, some colleagues cannot even get to work, and we can never be sure when to return home eventually – will the country we are flying to really let us in or send us to quarantine straight away? Yet, in the knowledge that working at maximum capacity will hopefully help society to endure the COVID-19 challenge a little better, nobody complains. 

Our jobs are also held by a string and it is in our vital interest to do what we can to save our companies! We have heard and answered the call and my colleagues are offering to give back vacation days in order to work. Our pilots are more eager to do their bit than ever before, just waiting for a chance to help out where help is needed.

Already before the COVID-19 pandemic began, we were threatened with losing our jobs due to outsourcing of our route network and a significant reduction of our fleet, not to mention the rumours of reduced crew and eventually no pilot cargo operations as the technology evolves.

Pilots = just a dispensable cost factor ?

We can only hope that management will recognize and value the efforts we are making to keep the business afloat and honour the scarifies we make. Experience shows that this will not be the case and that at the end of the crisis, when everybody else goes back to flying passengers, we once again risk to be reduced to working for the 'disregarded subsidiary' of a large multi-national company, in which pilots are just seen as a dispensable cost factor.