Corona_FO

amazing... thank you for sharing. I expect this Wizz policy against pilots in Europe will have an outcome very soon.

And what's the point of that? Keeping the recruitment team busy just so that they don't follow those who were fired or sent on unpaid leave?

Pearlharbour

That was about the pass rate also during the good times to be fair.

can you elaborate. Because I hardly believe that to be the case.

Back in my day (2012 that is) half of our group got invited for sim on day 2. Don't know how many of us actually passed but i did and flew for them for a few years before moving on greener pastures. The only reason i would go back if I'd be out of a job now just to get current and recent again then probably would bail on the first occasion for something better. But that said i doubt if they'd hire me. As far as i know they don't take people who worked for them before even though I've left under good terms with notice served and no outstanding bonds, whatsoever. Getting a letter of recommendation out of them was a pain in the a*s though.

SaulGoodman

Back in 2015 it was not easy to be even called for an assessment, without going to an open day first, if not rated.
In my group out of about 25 that showed up at day 1 about 10 made it to day 2, and 3 or 4 eventually were offered a start date at the end of the whole assessment.
And speaking to other guys the same happened in all other assessment days, at least in that period.

I don’t know if things changed later on, probably yes, since they grew considerably from that time.

Unless a local cadet, or rated with plenty of hours, joining Wizz as direct entry non rated FO has never been a walk in the park, to put it mildly, despite never been the best employer around.

A321drvr

I know at least one guy that was re-hired a couple of years after leaving, but that was in 2017. He was also upgraded straight away, and made base captain soon after, go figure

Wizz had pass rate around 30% before... However, since 2019 it changed a lot due to high demand I guess...

Something which might help is residing in a city where they foresee an expansion and hence demand for crews soon. That has always been one of the selling points of Wizz to prospective applicants - being able to work locally and sleep in your own bed every night. That being said, it's always been a two-way street as many of the applicants are mainly interested in joining because that's one of the few opportunities to fly commercially and be based in certain locations - or, quite often, even the only one.

To sleep in your own bed, while working for an airline is the highest achivement you can make. Commuting and being away from home for many many weeks does not contribute to your performance at all.

True that - and it gets a lot worse when you're no longer in your 20s, single, with no dependents and with relatively young and healthy parents. That's why I wouldn't be quick-handed to judge anyone for the compromises they make for the sake of being based in their home city. You never know what their personal circumstances might be. Maybe they have no viable alternative.

Corona_FO

As a commuter (hopefully not forever) on reasonably good T&C's, I have to say you're right.

46 city pairs were removed from the 2021 schedule. 22 bases are affected the worst ones are MXP and BUD (six and four routes respectively).

Wait, no big announcements on the press? How surprising

I reckon this will be the case not only for Wizz in the first half of 2021. We can only hope that vaccines will be effective so that we can start going to some sort of normality for summer and winter season.

I'm not sure what to think of this, hopefully they are not testing the waters for p2f...

https://wizzair.com/en-gb/informatio...20-type-rating

Looks like just type rating offer as ATO to me, nothing to do with job or future job

It is just a type rating course, I don't see them offering line training or promising anything else other than an entry in your license.

Probably not now but make no mistake that the spin doctors are having in the works...

A couple of years ago, I compared and contrasted the easyJet and wizz NTR DEC type rating costs, and wizz was about half the cost of the rip off easyJet scheme, which was a plus in their favour (although I took neither job, choosing to remain at my current employer who didn't charge me a bean for my rating; and quite right too)! Of course p2f is a BIG no no. Paying for a rating with no job - well, they can be very cheap, close on 11 grand, (cheaper than an LPC on some types) so it can be good for keeping in practice and enhancing the CV. Damn all use without the circuits though!

guys, I’m sot surprised if it would be a Pay2fly. But even if not. Here is my advice. Avoid this company as much as you can. Very toxic place without respect for pilots.
Remember what they did in March. They asked for lower salaries, everybody accepted for avoidsing layoffs and then they fired 1000 people.
after that they made people reapply and to pass through a new Assestments and pay their own expenses (even flight tickets) and Wizz knoced out again some of the application for second time...

I just hope Wizz will find 2021 and ahead what they deserve.

sorry to insist guys, but try to be as far as possible. Even if you are desperate for flying guys, there will be always an option if you are patient. Recovery is gonna be strong.

If you have an ATO with simulators which aren't running anywhere close to max capacity and you also have instructors who are anything but busy now (remember, BUD base was down to 4 flights per week not too long ago, probably not much busier now), why wouldn't you offer a self-funded course to someone willing to do an A320 type rating now for whatever reason? The advertisement explicitly says that it's not a job offer and does not include base training.

A crew planner was appointed to Cabin Crew Regional Manager South (the boss of all cabin crew members based in Budapest, Debrecen, Belgrade, Tuzla, Skopje and Tirana). He joined the company three years ago as a crew dispatcher.

Not surprising. I remember 4/5 years ago when a newly appointed Captain a few weeks after the upgrade was made Base Captain in one of the northern bases, only to be fired after one or two years, after many reports from the base pilots.

Wizz Air Employment Under Norwegian Regulatory Oversight - A Win for Employees
 

Norwegian CAA now confirming that Wizz Air operating bases in Norway are regarded as under Norwegian regulatory oversight, also regarding working environment laws. This is huge for WZZ employees that will then have to be permanently based in Norway if WZZ wishes to continue with bases in NO.

Norwegian working environment laws and worker protection is second to none. This means that for to-be Norway-based crew, unionization and collective agreements are not only possible, but totally realistic, as fully protected by Norwegian legal system. That is the case regardless of what their contracts say. With Ryanair at Rygge base in a dispute with a cabin crew, Ryanair stated that all disputes need be dealt with in Irish court, as per the contract (WZZ contract states disputes to be resolved under arbitration in NL, I believe), however Norwegian labor protection and thereby legal court required the case to be dealt with in Norwegian Court. Ryanair lost majorly.

I hope the WZZ crew are aware of the ultimate protection and rights they now have if based in Norway, and that they work together for a fair collective agreement with actual job security. Norway has always been very strong in terms of what's called 'three-party cooperation', meaning that all businesses in Norway are based on a cooperation between company, union, and government, all working together. Unlike a few other countries, unions in Norway are known to be fair and work together with companies for everyone's sake, not against the company. All based on mutual respect.

Without a doubt, this is WZZ crews absolute best chance to take up the fight for a proper deal and collective agreement with an absolute guarantee that they are protected by law. All eyes in Norway are on WZZ and working environment, so a dispute will go in employee favor and not go unnoticed. This could have huge impact on conditions for crew in all of Europe.

Link for article (in Norwegian): https://finansavisen.no/nyheter/luft...GI4DzH8K5Ooeyw

Great news! Hopefully more authorities follow suit, although I'm not sure if the same will work in the EU.

Trondheim base is to be closed.

Another neo vs. ground equipment collision today ín GDN.

Recruitment
 

Hey guys, any news on recruitment, have you had any status updates on your applications?

Thank you

I seriously doubt any recruitment (including rehiring those who were let go last April) happening this year. Most who are still in Wizz are afraid of another round of layoffs or in best case of increasing the amount of unpaid days per month. Pilots are barely making their 3 landings and takeoffs every 90 days. Slow vaccine rollout on the continent combined with the still unclear legal aspects of a so called "vaccine passport" and it's privileges on crossing borders even within the Schengen area are keeping everyone in limbo. Not a good place to be. Europe that is.

It's strange enough that they are interviewing candidates for their pilot academy.... Whatfor?!

In the end of last year, when optimism regarding vaccination in the EU was far greater than now and fears of vaccine-resistent strains were far weaker than now, I foresaw that the very earliest you can hope for recruitment at Wizz is late 2021 or early 2022. Why? Because, even if we assume that vaccination gets EU travel back on track in mid-2021, there are markets which are very important for Wizz and, unfortunately, don't stand a chance of achieving any significant level of vaccine coverage anytime soon. Think Ukraine, Moldova, some of the Balkan countries. These countries mostly rely on humanitarian aid programmes like COVAX to get any vaccines - and they make for a sizable fraction of the Wizz network. Not to mention that significant easing of travel restrictions among the better-off countries this summer is not a given yet. Everyone wants their holidays, but nobody wants to dash their progress in fighting the virus by importing a vaccine-resistent mutation. Wizz already have enough pilots to cover 80% of their 2019 capacity - and even that is not coming back in leaps and bounds. So, it might be worth looking elsewhere unless you're prepared to wait for at least another year.

Some bean counter somewhere is already doing the maths. 250 cadets per year on €30,000 per year vs SFOs on €70-80,000. That's a potential saving of 30,000 x 250 = €7,500,000. More bonuses for the boys.

SFOs on 70-80,000? more like 40-50,000 :O and that´s with pre-covid capacity and salaries. Cadets are somewhere around 20-30,000 range (again pre-covid). Rest is correct of course. They are planning to have 300 aircraft in 6-7 years, so they will need lots of workforce. Training new pilots will take them around 2 years, but I have serious doubts that much new workforce will be needed even in 2 years from now..

I was also (pleasantly) surprised by the 70-80k salary quote for SFOs. And yeah, cadets were ~24-26k based on their presentation/slides pre-covid in ~2018.

As for plans, we have a nice proverb: "Humans plan, God laughs".

Two years from zero to hero is an optimistic timeline even in the very best of times, let alone now. There can be delays at any stage of training. It might be that those who passed the assessment pre-COVID are now on a backlog which has to start before the brand new guys do. It might be that you finish the CPL and wait a couple of months for a TR because it's conducted by a different school. It might be that you do the TR and spend a couple of months waiting for an OCC and line training because airline instructors are an expensive asset and are usually kept in minimal numbers. So, the two years can easily become three. And it's more than likely that life in 2024 will look a lot better than in does in 2021. Only that you have to somehow support yourself until then.

70/80k? Not even Captains make that money.

I've seen their beancounters twisting and turning figures, numbers, etc. on magenta power point presentations and pdf-s. I wouldn't be surprised if they would deliberately mix up figures quoted pre-covid with current numbers. Just look at them patting their own back for their 99.9% (or quiet close to that number) OTP in 2020. What a :mad: surprise. No :mad: sherlock. I'm sure bonuses were handed for that as well.

​​​​​​The On Time Performance target was missed for 2-3 consecutive years before the virus (and not by a narrow margin) but somehow it did not make it to the news. It did not stop management bonuses either.

Have they started ops in Abu Dhabi? And if they have started ops, what is the roster like? How many sectors would one fly per month on average?
It’s long sectors which supposedly means a greater distance pay.

Is the 2000 euro bonus paid monthly on top of the salaries?