Carpatair are relatively new and as far as I know have had no incidents that would cause your colleages any undue concerns
Safety wise, they should have nothing to fear, other than fear itself...I spend most of my working life flying around Russia on Russian aircraft types (I had 5.5 hours on an IL-86 just yesterday and have done about 20 hours on Yak-40's, IL-62M's, TU-204's and TU-154M's in the past 3 weeks). When I started, I had certain apprehensions about the hightened risk factors which have proved groundless.
Carpatair don't operate ageing Russian types, quite the opposite, SAAB 340's & 2000's, so stop panicking an get on with the job.
Whooaahh!!!