Originally Posted by
binzer
Delta 12
a friend of a friend who works for Netjets assures me he spends the majority of his per diems on tour. It is a TAX FREE allowance which may be taxed in the future if not spent. So other than your information I’m sure everyone in Netjets spends a considerable amount of their per diem income.
Correct. In some countries the tax authorities are quite strict and you better keep all your personal expense receipts to prove that you actually spend most of your per-diems or the non-taxed part of it will be reduced even more! I hope that per-diems will be increased at some point to offset taxation and have more net in the end.
@Delta12: I am negative? I am realistic. Please take off your tinted glasses and look outside the box as well to realize that for what we do we are underpaid by quite a bit. An offset would be a fat year-end bonus in good years and we are hopefully going to see it in the near future, as the company is suddenly facing a situation where it cannot attract enough suitable candidates. The fact that our hiring contractor is opening yet another round of assessments is quite telling, because obviously we were not able to fill in the 60 seats so far. If I had a captain seat somewhere else, with a similar salary, I'd rather apply somewhere else. Yes, our roster is nice, our flying is nice, but there some important items (higher per-diems, higher salaries that reflect the current status of the market, a true pension scheme etc.) that need fixing. Churn is low? Excuse me, we lost more than 40 pilots in 2018, among them very senior captains who cannot afford to continue without a proper pension plan. I am 100% positive that 9 out of 10 of them loved the roster and the flying, but they took a rational decision. At the moment most crew members do NOT have a proper pension plan, but rather a savings plan: the money that goes in is taken from your net-salary and when you get money out later, you will pay tax again. Ok, the employer contribution is up to 6500 EUR a year, but that's a very low amount. I rather keep all my net salary and invest it myself.
So, if I was a real complainer, I'd have long left, because on the market you can easily make much more money, which comes at a price (roster, conditions etc), no doubt. For me personally, the PROs win over the CONs, too. And we are trying to resolve the CONs, but it is not happening overnight. The more people leave and the less people decide join us, the better for us, because the company will be forced to protect its operation. Logical. So, I am still holding my breath for better things to come - not because the company loves us, because they finally need us again!