Reputation gone
Things were not done in the right way. Yes the company need to save money and it is the companys right to put Omani pilots first. After all they have nowhere else to go.
But, the company handled the last 6 months in a very bad way, because it broke the contract promises that were made to foreign pilots. Covid supreme committee approved up to 30% pay cut for three months for everybody, that was it. We all accepted althogh it was difficult. But expat collegues had salary cut by 80%. This is against the Oman labor law, Supreme committee never approved this large cut, and did not approve that expats should be cut more. Also no other big company in Oman did this different treatment. Why does the company do things that are against the law?
If the terminated pilots now sue the company they will win, it will cost Oman Air more in court costs and bad reputation. Now the Omani pilots are back on 100% salary while 100 remaining expats are on 50%, open ended but at least 6 months. Also all expat cabin crew are on 30% while Omani crew earn 100%.
This is all illegal, as unpaid leave more than 30 days does not exist in the labour law. Any such step would have to be agreed with the workforce. Cutting housing allowance, also not allowed, as it is against the signed contract. But the expat pilots and also cabin crew were not asked. The company put it on them because company knows everybody is too scared to speak up.
Is there another airline where a junior first officer on narrow body makes more salary then senior wide body Captain? It is still against the law and will come back to bite us when these pilots and cabin crew sue. Which they surely will when they are terminated later.
Also Oman is a proud nation. All the terminated pilots will speak very badly about Oman and Oman air because of the way things were done. Many pilots found out they were terminated from logging into the roster, they were not informed by the company until the meeting days later. This is not the way to do it. They will not be good ambassadors for Oman.
Same with all the passengers who booked tickets and are not getting refunds for cancelled flights. This is very bad I hope we go back to doing things the right way in the future to save our reputation. Saving money is needed but not at the cost of breaking the law and destroying the reputation.