They add that the Saudi Arabian Airlines captain who died hours after a heated argument with a senior administrator on March 5 had been disputing the airline’s proposed new pay and productivity packages.
The sources told Arab News that Khaled Mattar had had a “very stressful discussion” with Abdulrahman Al-Mahboub at the flight operations building at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah. Mattar had been piloting a Saudia flight from Jeddah to Dammam.
Mattar experienced chest pains on the flight and handed over control to his first officer, who radioed ahead for medical assistance.
He died at 12:50 p.m. the following day at Al-Mana Hospital in Dammam, according to his brother Ali.
A senior pilot told Arab News that due to alleged wastefulness, pilots were flying for as little as an hour a day with a 24-hour break between.
“That is the way the trip is set up and it is terribly unproductive. That is not the fault of the pilots,” he said.
“It’s up to the guys in crew scheduling and quite often they give the good trips to their friends and the (awful) trips to the foreigners. We cannot work any more than we are scheduled.”
While some pilots are apparently inefficiently scheduled, another story from two sources in Saudia air crew has emerged of another pilot taken ill during a flight from Jeddah to Riyadh via Madinah and Tabuk in early January. The pilot, it is alleged, had been to his manager and requested time off.
He fell ill on the leg from Jeddah to Madinah and the first officer (FO) requested for him to be replaced.
The authorities declined, suggesting he continue through to Riyadh to the scheduled layover. “I assume the FO did the flying because the captain was basically incoherent,” said one of the sources.
On the approach to Tabuk, the unwell captain directed the FO to perform a “missed approach” and go around for a second.
On the second approach he ordered the same thing and the FO responded.
On the third approach he again made the same command, but the FO took control and landed the plane without incident.
On the ground, the FO requested an ambulance that then picked up the pilot. “I am not sure whether at that stage he was unconscious or just totally incoherent and out of it,” said the source.
When the authorities in Jeddah were informed, they asked for the captain to be put on a plane back to Jeddah, even though by this time he was hospitalized, said the source.
“The important thing here is that he went to the company to get more time off and the company did not come through.”
One source explained the cuts in time off and both public holidays and vacation would be substituted with cash payment instead. “It’s not about the cash, I would rather have the days and the time off,” said one senior pilot.
