Prestige Jet: Do Your Job, Go to Jail
We have seen numerous threads detailing the underhanded methods of the ownership and management of Prestige Jet, but this one is really over the top:
Due to having no credit after failing to pay just about every person and organization it deals with, Prestige Jet sends its flight crews out with tens of thousands of Euros in cash in order to pay for things like fuel, ground handling, hotels, etc. The entire operation is a cash operation, customers paying cash to Prestige Jet, Prestige Jet paying cash to suppliers - an accounting, organizational control, security and money-laundering nightmare.
With this background, a Lineage pilot asks to be paid (the company has not paid employees in several months), gets nowhere and so files a case for his pay. How does Prestige Jet react? While said pilot is out of country, they file a criminal case accusing the pilot of stealing AED 2 million and now he will be arrested if he tries to enter UAE.
Of course, if he really took the money, the airplane would have never been fueled or paid its various landing, handling and other charges, so this claim is rendered prima facie absurd by fact of the pilot having successfully completed all assigned trips, which he could not have done without spending the money on required items such as fuel and ground handling (not to mention what an indictment this is about management control over the cash, if it is to be believed.)
Colleagues, it is bad enough to not be paid, to be paid sporadically and to be ripped off on your way out of the company - but to be accused of criminal acts and sent to jail because you do your job and ask to be paid is absolutely reprehensible. I hope that all in the pilot community will be as shocked and outraged as I am about this new low in UAE working conditions.
Thank you for whatever moral support you can add to this innocent pilot's travails. Please add your comments so that this thread remains on Page 1 of Pprune until the charges are dropped against this pilot, the current employees are paid and the court orders to pay former employees, a number of whom have successfully won judgments which the company simply ignores, are complied with by Prestige Jet. Thank you for your support and participation in keeping this topic and this thread alive.