Originally Posted by
Superpilot
Of course, no one can defend atypical employment practices but you have to reason a little and try to understand why they have emerged.
There are probably more airlines in Europe that now operate an atypical employment structure than not. And with the recycling of the aviation industry that's about to take place, I can see every single new player doing the same. Primera, Norwegian and SAIL all have had the same agency based employment structures. SmartLynx, Avion, Small Planet all have been hiring and paying offshore through agencies for years. What pattern do you see here? None of the above are British companies but still want/wanted to do business out of here. Agency based employees are an easy, risk-free option for them. The alternative is for them to open their own HR departments in each of the countries they operate in (impractical). To open a local HR department, you need to launch a local subsidiary company (SmartLynx UK, Smarlynx France, Smartlynx Germany). In the case of some of these airlines they would need to open 20! What difference does it make though? The terms will still be ****.
The real question is this (and it probably applies to most Western European countries)...
When was the last time a UK registered, wholly based and HQd company launched an airline in the UK? You'd have to go back a long time if I'm not mistaken! No business person with a brain would spend their fortune launching an airline out of a Western European country. Big Europe has made it impossible for Western European airlines to compete with The Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians and Polish. Even The Vikings can undercut us thanks to their pent up billions and easy finance on tap. So much demand out of the UK over the last decade yet not a single sizable and meaningful 100% UK based operator has emerged to plug that gap, it's always a foreign player. This is the real issue. Big Europe and the undercutting of our businesses and livelihoods.
It's 100% legal for airlines and corporations to do this. However it's also 100% legal to be denied any kind of taxpayer assistance when in situations like this.
Now the airline becomes a victim of its own poor decisions.
(NB: I'm criticizing the management, not the crews or frontline staff who are the unfortunate victims here)