Avion Express through the Covid-19 Pandemic
At Avion Express, crews (flight deck & cabin) are working as freelancers, with no benefits, nor taxes paid, nor mutual assistance from any State (especially from ex-soviet Lithuania).
Avion Express is an ACMI belonging to Avia Solution Group (ASG), meaning that profit is everything and that the real workers are just meaningless numbers.
Before the crisis, crew members received basic pay for a living and Block Hours pay was a well accepted extra.
When the pandemic first hit on March 2020, some crews where in different bases and were sent home with no future plan ahead, like many other companies did.
Some crews were stuck in bases such as in the Middle East and in Vilnius, when the company informed everyone via a simple email that the salary from the PREVIOUS month was going to be cut by a 30% from the gross total. Some crews lost valuable money that could have helped them and their families to have some more financial base to get through the pandemic. This 30% of cut was, moreover, taken from money earned from already flown hours and sacrificed lifetime spent in places like Vietnam (5 planes with pages-long MELs were based in Saigon at that time).
Not happy yet, the management took the decision to remove the basic pay from all crews (without unemployment assistance from any State). Everyone was put on a Pay per Block Hour (PBH) contract. Since there were almost no flights, zero was the amount of money to be expected each month from Avion. The only exemptions were crews based in the Middle East (the client did not accept that the crews stuck there were irregularly underpaid) and the ones stuck in Vilnius (those were receiving Per Diems).
Any of the attempts to restore the previous salaries by founding a Union between crew members was shut down by sending firing letters to the ones involved.
On May 2020, many chosen pilots and CCs (depending on their relationship with the management and absolutely not per meritocracy, seniority or performance) were fired. Some of them received a firing letter even while performing flights. Only around 60 pilots out of 220 "survived" the massacre.
At the beginning of Summer 2020, the management informed the crews that the Per Diems of the PBH contracts were going to have a further 40% cut from the gross Per Diems.
The Summer and Autumn went along with almost no flights due to the restrictions across Europe. The base in Middle East moved to Africa, those crews were rotated with others after being absent from home for more than 6 months. Many Crew members were infected by the Covid-19 virus and no special interest, compensation or help towards them was offered by the Company during their stay in African hospitals.
A new contract started on October 2020 with only a few planes, and in November a further Per Diems cut of 40% was announced. The reason behind that was that the Commercial Department had dealt such a low price with the client, that the crews had to pay out the difference. Profits for the shareholders were kept at the same percentage.
On December 2020 a new contract was announced, with charter flights and planes based in Vilnius starting from Spring 2021. The conditions proposed by the management were absolutely insane and unworthy but, since still in the middle of the Pandemic, several crews accepted that contract as well. The choice was between flying a bit and gaining recency, or sitting at home on a couch.
Crews moved to Vilnius without accommodation; taxes, and transport to/from work not supported by the company. Captains would be able to go even with the money earned and spent, first officers would have to put some of their own savings in order to work and survive.
The P2F scheme for Cadets was started again, so experienced first officers and normal captains (non-LTCs) would see their block hours shrink to the lowest bottom again.
Summer 2021 started, some crews were sent to new bases with the same low salary. The Company started hiring back some Pilots, based on old favours and friendships to training department and management people. The Company that during meetings was assuring "Seniority above-all selection criteria", started sending new guys (but old friends) to the more desired bases, where salaries were still untouched from prior the Pandemic.
In the bases the mood is low as the salaries, pilots started being even more frustrated and stressed due to lack of money to feed their families. Flight performances and flight safety is extremely jeopardised by keeping pilots depressed. Nobody cares anymore about SOPs (unless during Line Checks), since everyone is looking for a new Company. Many worthy people will leave and be replaced by others, who will be just keen to get back their recency in order to apply elsewhere.
Looks like training people and losing them at record speeds has become a new hobby of Avion Express. Training has a high cost, and it’s currently mostly wasted money.
The PBH contract pushes pilots and CCs to hide their health status, so many were found taking pills in order to fly with Covid-19 symptoms. The “calling sick rate” is the lowest ever recorded by the company.
Rotations are endless, sometimes longer than 2 months, spent in cheap hotels.
Winter is coming, so let's see how many more interesting decisions will be taken by the management within the next months.
Hope this post helped to understand the behaviour of Avion Express, and have an objective idea about if applying or not for a job there.