PAL Pilot Exodus

[srs78]

The Real Score

Today, a lot of PAL flights were cancelled, both domestic and regional flights were affected. The reason given, NO AVAILABLE CREW TO FLY THE PLANES!

Real score why pilots are leaving.

Last October 2009, the service contracts of 4 Captains (who are above 60 years old), namely De Dios, De la Cruz, Guttierez and Roma were terminated. The reason given was redundancy. 2 of these pilots were due to end their contracts, one in about 3 months time, and the other in about 6 months.

This event had the young pilots thinking, if this could be done to the old guys, it could easily be done to them as well ( 2 in the group who were terminated were returnees for the company during the strike). Because of this, as early as November last year, there were already some guys who applied for jobs somewhere else.

Then come February this year, 11 senior Captains and 7 of the most junior First Officers were given the same treatment. Again the reason was redundancy, when at that time, the average flying time was around 90 hours. The real reason was, they were going to open a Low Cost Carrier at Airphil, using the A320s, to counter the surging dominance of Cebu Pacific in the domestic as well as regional routes. Passenger market share was already 60% for Cebu Pac and 40% for PAL.

So, by late March this year, two of the A320 from the PAL fleet were transferred to Airphil together with the 11 elder captains plus 7 young first officers. Thrown to the other side of the fence to fly the planes, with compensation around half of what they used to get. Maybe PAL management's reasoning was, "... wala namang mapupuntahan ang mga iyan!"("...those guys don't have anywhere else to go to!")

Info leaked out that planes and pilots will be transferred from PAL to Airphil. It was announced during the Inaugural flight that 20 A320s is the initial target. In fact, there will be 4 brand new planes to be delivered between September to November, then another set next year.

This got the pilots thinking, where will they get the pilots to fly them?
The obvious answer was, from PAL. So the info was for real!

Knowing fully well what the working conditions and compensation are waiting for them at the other side of the fence, the A320 people started to explore other options before they got hit.

Although the compensation outside is may be bigger, the present pay scale may seem to be substantial, what with all the incentives that were packaged because of the last exodus. The real reason for this exodus is, the pilots (who have not union nor collective bargaining agreement to protect themselves), cannot take the "pambrabraso" (strong arm tactics) anymore. If they don't have security of tenure at PAL, then it would be a lot better to work elsewhere with the same unsecured job but with maybe better compensation.

Now, press releases from the company are again out to discredit the pilot group. Supposedly pilots are leaving and violating their contracts because of higher pay elsewhere. The veracity of PAL's claims is not accompanied by factual evidence and as it is intended, mask the true goings-on in the company and manipulate public opinion.

This is the score.