Having not flown much for the past two years due to COVID, my company continues to put first officers on enforced seasonal part-time contracts after two years’ service, working two weeks on/two weeks off in winter. This is damaging to crew morale when the company are recruiting cadets on full time contracts with a higher base salary. But, most importantly, having flown so little over the past two years, I feel anxious and lacking recency when I am flying at most 4 days a month at the moment. I make mistakes that I wouldn’t have made before when I was flying more often and my capacity is often much reduced. This is detrimental to safety and my career in my opinion.
The issue stems back to [Airline] wanting seasonal flexibility with pilots. The compromise was that cadets now get directly employed full time from day one of their [Airline] career but go onto never-ending seasonal part time contracts after two years. With cadet recruitment ongoing and new cadets taking any additional winter FTE, I feel I’m being replaced by recruitment.
