Originally Posted by
Madp1lot
All those negative comments above have no grounds and come from ppl who either created an account for the sole purpose of those comments (they have no other comments anywhere in pprune), or left the company even before they started flying or so they say.. (April was a dead month still..).
Now. It IS an ACMI. There is no such thing as an employment contract, just like in ANY OTHER ACMI out there. Reason has to do with Industry risk. ACMIs take the other airlines risks away, and they can't take that risk themselves. Taxes are up to each individual and all pay is legal from the company side. If a specific person doesn't pay their taxes, that's their own responsibility, as it should be. All tax related information is provided by the company and the broker.
Despite this, the company does make an effort to treat crews with respect and decency, and we are treated as employees, not contractors.
ACMI is an interesting business to say the least.
Some ACMI provided direct employment contract ( as Privatair in the past) with proper conditions. All these Baltic mafia airlines are working the same way and these kind of contract is chosen for obvious reasons as reducing cost and avoid paying Social contributions. We all know, staff is one of the top cost center after fuel. With a fee of 9000 euros/ month for Cpt is well too low. This should be the fee for a First officer and captain at least 15K during High season.
One of the main issue on these ACMI airlines you don't have home base. EU regulation is pretty clear on this that you have to pay social contributions in your home base country. Your positioning country is not your home base. If you are working on several bases ( different countries), it's your tax residentship country ( social welfare office) that determined where you should pay your contributions ( this included for freelancer/soletrader).
You are treated as an employee but your are not an employee. Your contract relationship is the most important. In good time you are an employee, when the downturn will come, you will be a contractor, simple as this... As long as you are aware of this, no surprise...
The main issue is the pilot himself/herself. The majority of them are playing tax evasion.
I personally settled down my sole trader company as a freelance pilot and paid my social contributions and tax in my residentship country.
The downturn of these contract, it's not stable and if you want to invest, buy your home/house, Banks are less entitled to give you a loan ( specially now with high interest rate) compared to permanent contract ( more stable). For those willing more stability ACMI is not the best choice.
For those who have everything and don't need and want to work part-time, live in the country where he/she wants ( In Europe at least) ACMI can be a good choice. This is the only advantage...
Personally, I enjoyed my time in some of them, but the worst one was smartlynx. Now working for a proper airline with proper contract, but if I wanted to carry on ACMI airline, Heston would have been on consideration.