latest update from the kusina.
expect more pilots leaving the company by Dec and early nexy year. Sweet and tempting offers are being received by A-320 Capatins and F/O from the other airlines across and outside of the fence. To start with:
Airphil Express , who right now is in dire need of pilots to keep their new A-320 flying , is desperately pirating rated Cebu Pac A-320 pilots to their fold. The current offer is 1.5 Million pesos sign-in bonus for rated Captains and P800,000 bonus for rated F/O's for direct hire Captain upgrade.. They are even offering to pay an existing pilot contract just to transfer with them. and to make the offer more juicer, latest news weve heard is that the management were able to make the productivity pay tax free.(which Cebu Pac refuses to implement, despite Zest, Tiger, now Airphil) As such, 2 Captains immediately grab the offer and signed the contract right away , while 6 more Captains are studying the contract in details. For the F/O, the latest count is 17 have already submitted their intent with Airphil Flt Ops/HR and just waiting for the resolution of finer prints in their contract negotiation Of this 17 FO's, 6 have resigned effective Dec and is just waiting for their Captain Upgrade Sim Trng this Dec at Hongkong.
For the Tiger Airways news - 8 Captains and 4 F/O with Dec 1 effectivity of resignation, are already in the middle of Tiger Integration training in Singapore. In addition, 20 Cebu Pac F/A's will be resigning effective Dec and will be joinig the pilot group on the Dec 15 inaugural lunch of Tiger Philippines operations. With 6 more airbus slated to arrive by next year (total of 18 till 2012) , more pilots are expected to cross the other side of the fence. With the salary range of US $ 9000 net (80 hrs) for Captains, US $ 6,500 net (80hrs) for FO and 60,000 for F/A, the offer is very tempting since it is locally Clark based with less red-eye and more days off.
so the situation right now is very volatile in Cebu Pac. Mark Breen , the architect of all these pilots stress and distress, is ordering series of emergency meeting and in fact,gave marching orders for the immediate Captain upgrade training of 20 FO to address the issue.
however , the training Department is in limbo on who will be trained since the 20 senior F/O's have already signified their intent to transfer with Tiger and Airphil. .
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Higher management is now in panic mode.
Even Lance is working on a last minute pilot renumeration package to stop this exodus.
But we think its too late. Cebu Pac has not learned its lesson well . its always in reactive mode not pro-active one. Had they listen to the pilots issues presented beforehand, things will not turned this way..
In an airline set up this days, one way to survive and be profitable is not on how many aircraft you have, on the number of route's to fly, or on the million of passengers you carry.....but will always be dictated by the number of trained pilots you have..Most start up airlines now, from india to singapore to china, dont have A-320 pilots to fly their parked aircraft ....yet Cebu Pac is just allowing that the training, skills and expertise they have invested in through the years to be put into waste and be beneficial to others.
so...... Expect more exodus. cebu Pac to lose more skills and expertise...expect flight cancellation starting december or january and expect the coming airbus to be idle and parked on the ground with no pilots to fly..expect Lance to blame MB as the culprit of all this bruhaha and send him to tora bora