Ethiopean airlines pilot jobs - Warning
This is a warning to all pilots thinking about employment with Ethiopian Airlines.
Ethiopian Airlines is offering what appears to be a great commutable contract. For expatriate pilots from all over the world the deal is for B777, B767, B757, B737 & MD11 crews paying $7000 per month, working 20 days on and 10 days off OR 24 days on and 14 days off, plus $60 per day expense allowance.
Although the money isn’t the best deal about, the commuting roster makes up for that and has proved a real plus in the past , on the face of it, a very attractive deal for many. However, the rules have changed and I believe that corruption has infiltrated what was a great deal.
The first thing anyone interested in this job needs to know is that you won’t get paid. The new deal is that you don’t get paid until you finish your ‘Training’. A process that used to take anything between two and four weeks, now takes anything up to three months!! You see the longer they can keep you in the training program, the longer they don’t have to pay you.
After finishing the simulator and classroom work you will go into line training. Since the new rules were invented, no-one has finished the line training. Every excuse is made to give you another sector and now it has become a requirement to line check pilots on every route. In short they will use you as a pilot on a commercial flight with fair paying passengers and not have to pay you a bean, until you eventually wake up to find the handle on your back and’ MUG’ across your brow! As no doubt someone is creaming off your pay for their own wallet!
OK, I have no proof that corruption is behind this, but the clues are there. It’s not every office you walk into these days that has an ‘Anti-Corruption Suggestion Box’ taking pride of place in the entrance to the office block.
They pay for the Hotel for the first 20 days and then you are on your own. The per-diem payments $60 a day are supposed to help you with your living expenses after that, particularly as you are not going to get paid during training which can take up to three months. Don’t be fooled by this promise either, I never received a penny in per-diems and faced with the prospect of being destitute in Addis Ababa, I had to leave, a total waste of time!
The fact is that the Ethiopian People are nice people, or maybe that’s part of the scam, I don’t know. The airline has huge potential and deserves to be great, but the rot has set in. In the month I was there 12 pilots left, some having seen the light half way through the training, others having completed the training, to get as much as possible out of the company in lieu of not getting paid. Some even took the Boeing OPT laptop computers in lieu of payment. Another guy from the UK left with his last $8. Not only did they refused to pay him they also refused his ticket home because he would not sign a contract that in no way resembled the terms and conditions on his letter of appointment agreed before he went out there.
Even their own engineers are leaving for better pay and conditions as well, leaving the company in a dangerous and precarious condition with all engineering experience walking out the door.
This company has failed rule No.3 of business management. “If you don’t look after your staff………….”
There is something sick about a country that spends fortunes on jet airliners, new B777s, launch customers in Africa for the B787, while their own people starve. Just one B777 could transform the lives of millions for years.
So if you’re looking for a job, and are considering Ethiopian Airlines as a possibility, my advice is STOP! REJECT!.... Everyone should boycott this airline until they see the error of their ways and to stop other airlines from following suit and taking us all for the MUGs we’ve been in the past for going along with this sort of garbage in the first place.
Warning, Warning…… more fool you if you fail to heed this Warning!!!!