Wizz Air grim-looking war with employees Wizz Air, a low-cost carrier from Hungary, can definitely boast about the way their company has handled the crisis so far. Its base portfolio has expanded massively by 11 bases throughout Europe, expanding from its Central and Eastern European shell into a trans-European low-cost carrier. A new subsidiary in Abu Dhabi, despite being delayed, will go ahead. In a gloomy sky, Wizz Air became a shining star of the industry – yet not everyone is bright about the airline’s adventures throughout the pandemic.
In particular, its unions. The company was not previously known for overly friendly ties with its employees’ representatives, but the way it has handled the relationship with the backdrop of the continuing expansion has resulted in a relationship with a strain that is as big as the San Andreas Fault.Lay-offs and pay cutsIn April 2020, the airline waved goodbye to around 1,000 employees, as Wizz Air operated only 3% of its total capacity throughout March 2020. The company foresaw that, much like everyone else, it would have to cut costs, despite its robust liquidity situation. Prior to the breakout, it had a substantial amount of liquidity. So much so, that in March 2020, the company’s own chief executive József Váradi boasted to Hungarian media about the fact that Wizz Air could be grounded for three years before it ran out of cash.
Váradi was very critical of state-aid as well, commenting that most Europe-based airlines were badly managed. Instead, governments “should only be stepping in areas of employment and reducing charges such as air navigation costs,” he told Bloomberg in April 2020. Nevertheless, Wizz Air was eligible and applied for the United Kingdom’s COVID Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF) to bolster its financial position.
The 1,000 layoffs were the equivalent of 19% of the airline’s total workforce. Wizz Air was also under fire for its fire and rehire practice, especially as it announced a hiring campaign for its Abu Dhabi subsidiary in July 2020. Former employees, including pilots, had to follow “the same application process as a new joiner to comply with GDPR restrictions and also to meet the EASA mandate to be psychologically tested prior to employment.”
As a cherry on top, deep pay cuts were introduced by the airline in August 2020. Anti-union stance “We are not immune to the crisis either,” stated Váradi in an interview with the aeroTELEGRAPH in June 2020. “So we have to lay off employees as short-term measures,” he added. Despite the fact, Wizz Air still plans to grow in 2021, and “will need to hire pilots and cabin crews again.” The executive disclosed the airline’s firm stance against unions, which “are killing the business.”
“If the unions try to catch us and to kill us, we simply close the base and move on. That’s the beauty of being an airline with the diversity and flexibility we have in our network: We can simply move our aircraft to another place.”
His words came in the light of Wizz Air opening its seventh base in 2020 - in Dortmund Airport (DTM), Germany.
The anti-union stance has not changed, however. Its newest expansion to Norway, where the low-cost carrier plans to establish a base at Oslo Gardermoen Airport (OSL), placing one Airbus A321 aircraft and adding an additional one in December 2020 has not shifted that point of view. When asked whether the airline planned to enter into labor agreements with Norway-based unions, Váradi told local media that was not the plan.
“We are an airline without unions.”
Parat, a Norwegian trade union for various employees, already raised its concerns on October 6, 2020. It was the same day when Wizz Air announced its Scandinavian ambitions.
“We have a well-functioning party collaboration between employers and employees, something we expect to be maintained,” stated Anneli Nyberg, the deputy of Parat.
Eoin Coates, the head of aviation at the European Transport Workers‘ Federation (ETF) was more straightforward in his assessment of Wizz Air.“They use every way they can to ensure free movement, and use all the dirty tricks in the book. They abuse employees all over Europe. Our biggest concern is that the company has both the money and the time to pick up all domestic routes that are now open in Europe,” running its competitors into the ground, stated Coates. Firing back with lawsuits The situation shifted quickly, according to a now-former Wizz Air pilot, who spoke with AeroTime News on the condition of anonymity.
“When everything started in March 2020, our managers always told us during meetings that we should not worry, as the company has a lot of cash. Your job is safe. At the beginning of April, however, they asked us to sign a new addendum to our contracts, slashing our base salary by 25%.”
The pilots accepted the deal, as they wanted to keep their jobs, despite the fact that their base salary was already quite low, added the pilot. The list of pilots who were to be fired was allegedly already there, even before flight crews agreed to lower their salaries. The letters were hand-signed by managers in Budapest, Hungary, where the airline’s base of operations is located, noted the Airbus A320 family captain.
“Wizz Air did not use any logical criteria, except whether you were liked by the base captain or not.” The company’s chief executive, in a letter explaining the layoffs, indicated three criteria. One of them was whether a person was a “cultural fit to Wizz Air.”
But the airline, despite cutting employment costs, kept opening up bases and taking deliveries of new Airbus A320neo family aircraft. In June 2020, the airline began recruiting pilots and cabin crews. “They promised to the people who were dismissed that they will be hired again. You will be the first ones to be recalled.”
“They were not hiring again. They were just promising you that you will be recalled. Instead, you were recalled for an assessment, despite having been laid off two months’ prior.” Many people were reluctant to take Wizz Air to court as they were hoping to get their positions back in the cockpit. Yet, apart from a few pilots, many were not even offered an assessment after being dismissed.
“Those who kept working at Wizz Air kept doing so in an atmosphere of genuine fear of discrimination and persecution, which leads to a reduction of safety,” read an open letter by FPU Romania, a pilot and cabin crew union based in Romania, sent to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in July 2020.
AeroTime News approached Wizz Air for comment.