levantes
I do see your point to a certain extent, and I am guessing you already know the answer to most of the questions you posed. First of all Sunwing pilots work under Sunwing T & Cs while on deployment. I understand the airplanes/crews are wetleased so that is the way it has to be for many reasons. I don't know what the T &Cs are for the companies that lease Sunwing crews and airplanes nor do I care. Why? I was hired by Sunwing under the Sunwing T & Cs and I understood that where ever I find myself I was will be a Sunwing employee, and the conditions I am employed uner is more than fair. I guess what you are trying to say is that wetleasing aircraft/crew brings down the T/C's of your or any company they operate for in Europe? Not sure I see how that could be. Sunwing T&C's are on par with Canadian standards and cost of living in Canada are in a different league from Europe (I am guessing 25 - 50% less depending on where in Europe you are) so I don't see how Sunwing's less attractive T&C would be an excuse for management to cut wages in Europe. Also, by the time the extra expenses associated with wet leasing are said and done I am not so sure there is a whole lot of savings to be had. Where the savings probably lie is in not having to hire and train/retrain crews every spring. We all know it is about making more $$, and the business people that are in charge aiming for a bigger slize of the pie. Your last paragraph referring to the 90's rule of thumb sounds good on paper and to you and me but I don't think to many airline owners think like that. If they can fill up 10 airplanes in the busy season they will get ten airplanes as long there is work somewhere for them in the off season. Most of us would preferr to be "here" for 12 months, but will settle for "6 here and 6 there" if it means being employed 12 months out of the year. If having a mutual agreement in place for wetleasing during the off season is having a detoriating effect on your T&Cs I am sorry to hear that. Like I said our T&C are pretty much to North American standards and we are taken very good care of when deployed so I haven't heard any complaints on this end.