Thank you for your post MaxBlow, I feel that you are very factual and I'm happy to see that.
I'll go through your reply and answer every comment you made.
Resignations
Wouldn't it be easier to improve T&C's to prevent crews from leaving and spend enormous amounts of money rather than to train new crews over and over again that will also just stay for short periods ?
T&C's are being improved with the new the rostering system: 4 weeks on / 10 days off. I hope that will help, but I think that a part of the problem (why crews are leaving) is that the moral is not good enough. Management could help fix that and hopefully they will, but first they have to see the problem and I don't know if they do.
In regards to conditions alone I think that if you compare pay between AAI and other operators in the same field, AAI is not as unfair as some users here on pprune say they are. By browsing through
www.ppjn.com you can see that, but I think that AAI could improve in that field, and hopefully the will. Everything happens in small steps, but sometimes they are too few and too small...
AAI is not a scheduled Airline
Very true! But this doesn't mean that crews have give up their lives to be available. Day to day rostering has it that even off days disappear and people can't plan anything. Everybody has a private life and it is of course a favor to the company if a crew member goes to work on a rostered off day! In fact this day should be paid extra as well (just like it is for permanent crews).
Crewing tries to keep changes on rosters to a minimum. Off days should never disappear from your roster, you get a minimum of 7 days per month, if you don't, talk to the Manager of Crew resources. There are rules about this and everyone should adhere to them, if somebody is trying cheat on you he will assist you.
Rostering is not done on a day to day bases, except in Jeddah. SV is constantly changing our schedule so there is just no way that a roster can be issued for 15 days and kept. I think that Rostering has been issuing these rosters with stand-by days and days off. You should only be asked to fly when on stand-by, not on off days.
Favors have been done by crew members, of course! But a roster change is not a favor. If crew members can not accept that their roster will change they are not working for the correct airline. I'm not encouraging anyone to resign, I'm just pointing out a simple fact.
Icelandic taxes
Fact is that everybody who lives in Europe has to pay taxes somewhere in the range between 20% and 45%.
Keep in mind that contractors have no benefits at all and are paid in U$D with no compensation whatsoever.
True and not true. As said in my earlier post payments are made to an off shore accounts (or where you ask for it) and because you spend more than half the year away from home you don't pay taxes at home (EU rule I believe). I remember a few Danish guys that left the company because they couldn't go home every 4 weeks to claim their benefits, I don't think they were paying any Danish taxes.
In regards to the benefits; I know that AAI crew members don't get any benefits, but why don't the contractors form a union and demand them? Last year some guys tried to unionize contractors within AAI, but their first action was to strike! How stupid was that? Fist make a union, have everybody join it and then do something. Don't have crew members say if they are in our out by forcing them to strike on the first day if they want to be in. Needless to say only a handful of guys participated in the strike.
Limited resources
Get the required resources - hire professionals, pay their price, fairly simple.
I wish the new management luck quite some work ahead. Maybe things improve for all contractors but management has to wake up now!
Yes, it is fairly simple. But lets put it up like this: You are the Manager of Crew resources and you say to your VP of flight operations: I need 50 pilots for this job, that is the absolute minimum! Then the VP of Flight Ops says: well, then you only get 30! This has been one of the biggest problems within AAI. Hopefully this will be better with new VP of Flight Operations and a new Chief Pilot. They have already started hiring more pilots and hopefully that will help.
And yes, agreed, the management has to wake up! It might be too late tomorrow!
Having said all that I would like you AAI guys who read this pass a message on to your colleagues: If you are unhappy don't bitch about it for the 8, 10 or 12 hrs you are flying. If you are unhappy just write a polite e-mail to HQ in Iceland and say why you are unhappy. If you don't get a reply send it again and again and again until you get a response. Send it to Human Resources, send it to Manager of Crewing, send it to VP of Flight Operations, send it to the Chief Pilot and send it to the CEO! Too often guys go on without saying anything, except to each other or at the most the poor their s**t over some poor ops staff which don't deserve it and can't do anything about it.
I'll let this do for now, I hope you got your answers MaxBlow
