Well, I found out the hard way about South African Aviation. Now I'm sure this was an isolated incident but never the less it really turned me off to buisiness practices over there. After being hired by Irwin Air out of Jo-Burg a group of six crew members worked our ass's off in Florida for a couple of weeks prepareing a B-727 to deliver to Angola. The purpose..To haul fuel with it to the diamond mines. We were offered a decent wage and without a written contract but a handshake left Florida for Angola.( DUH... on our part ! ) Without going into details it took us almost two weeks getting into Angola after we arrived in North Africa. After finally arriveing in Luanda our passports were taken and we never saw them and we never flew for two weeks.( Hostage's ?) The Embassy's were notified eventually and the passports were returned. All this time however Irwin kept promising that we would get paid tomorrow. The whole crew decided to get the hell out of Angola and head to Jo-Burg but to do so, had to pay our own way. After a week in Jo-Burg two of the crew members returned to the States after never receiveing a pay check and the others eventually returned to Angola to begin hauling fuel to the mines.They spent about a month or so risking there lives in this non STC flying bomb and they too finally gave up as they were never paid. NOW...there are a lot of scumbags and crooks in the US operating Airlines but usually they don't get away with it for two long and the FAA know who they are. In South Africa though, no one seems to care who these kind of operators are and are not willing to pursue and prosecute them. Its a shame some of us have to leave our own countries to find work but to risk our health and lives all for nothing is F#@##@ Up !! .
