wizzair showing their true face
 

Ah, the fantastic zoom meetings and smartphone era... everybody today can become an investigation reporter and spill the beans anonymously on social media..
That said we all knew before what guys like these were doing being the closed doors of their offices since years, Just painful to get it on tape... and becoming one of the bad apples yourself..

We all knew it, but apparently there is proof..
 

Don't know if it had been reported here yet.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2BV2XA

Apparently, an unknown manager at Wizz air was on an internal call, telling people they needed to get rid of "certain" pilots. Funny that the head of flight ops has been put on "non-active" after the audio fragment started circulating around the pilot community at Wizz Air.

Also some talk on the call about dodgy employment practices through a Dutch broker.

Would be nice if the EU would for once work in the favour of honest employment practices and start an investigation into Wizz... But not holding my breath...

Disgusting though not surprising given the airline's anti labour, union busting practices. They're not sorry, just sorry that they were caught.

I like to hope that a "smoking gun" like this would result in some actual action by the regulators, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

I'm a big supporter of the EU but situations like this where a company can choose to employ crew through a crewing company in the EU state with the lowest labour protections, base them in another country entirely and then complete against other airlines who actually do treat their staff half decently, shows that the current laws are completely unfit for purpose, especially as far as airlines go.

I am pretty sure that this episode is going to feature in some business school case studies of how not to do things. Incidentally the chief pilot was a management pilot in the Middle East previously and a military pilot prior to that. I don’t know if he picked up his management style from any of those experiences, but the shareholders cannot be happy. Didn’t Indigo sell quite a lot of stock a few weeks ago? well before all this of course, but lucky timing.

Same time seems to be open for lawsuits where ex employees or contractors also win some cases... Would be interesting to read the independent review and see the reasoning behind their conclusions in any case...

Few cases i heard of ended up with a settlement involved a non disclosure clause, so we won't know the whole story. Other than that a full court case, going through all the stages and hoops would certainly put wizz in the spotlight. Could even be used as a precedent in some future cases varying from state to state depending on local laws and regs.

hunnywagon

Wether mandated by his superiors or by self-determination, this is a straight continuation of this manager’s previous employer’s practices. Unfortunately, this is becoming the MO of many airlines’ management.
As for the “weak” captains, well, that has always existed in more or less degree as not everyone has the same levels for different sets of skills.
There is a difference between “weak” and “unsafe”.

The saga might though, bring into question the concept of 'base captains". Some are great, but some can have very strange philosophies, which can often royally hack off either the crew or the company, or just engender an unpleasant atmosphere of paranoia in the base. And they're highly paid for what is predominantly an admin job, while operational matters are arguably best dealt with centrally.

MataMoros

It might mean that at "normal airlines", but this is Wizz, it means what it really means. Things like needing to be told they need to de-ice when they have snow on the wings, this is just one example, there are many more.

UK Taxpayers Support
 

I can never understand why Wizzair were permitted to have all those millions of UK taxpayers money. Knowing what we now know that was a great decision!

Oh, base captains... My experience with most of them is that they can't even organize a parking permit or your vacation to be confirmed on time however they are the first to send emails about a late checkin once in a while. They need a wake up call and a reality check. They are nothing more than glorified administrators.

Hey guys, any news on recruitment, have you had any status updates on your applications, considering not T/R FO?

Thank you

Good luck with that, actual pilots in the company are literally praying not to be fired, no prospects of hiring happening anytime soon as seen from the inside.
They might build a holding pool, but I would not hold my breath.

Highly doubt that there will be more terminations. They have around 140 airframes, over 25 will be added in the next 12 months, and how many pilots they have? With the current pilot work force they are able to operate around 100...?. It is a nice argument to keep salaries low and UL days high. If they terminate more pilots shares of Wizz will be flushed down the toilet, more law suits, plus higher CASK as they have to fire now the cheap pilots. Wont happen, looks more like JV is going all in, if it works he will be the hero, if not ........

I would perhaps nuance that by taking a quick glance at how many airframes Wizz have announced will be added vs how many actually delivered, and additionally how many older ones will be returned to lessors over that timeframe.

JoszefV

The problem is not how many airframes they will have, but how many of those will actually fly in the next 12 months, and things are not lloking very promising. Not just for them, to be clear, but for everyone, especially those that won't be bailed out.

Pilotser

Posts like this make me wonder. Do people even read the threads they post in?

dirk85

Same time they are saying the plan is to double the fleet over next five years. Also that they can operate 100 frames now and could stretch things to 120 if needed. Once they start canceling orders, meaning they no longer see a need for that capacity long term, i would get more worried ...

Pilotser

Did you read the Wizz transcript?
It's beggars belief to see such ignorance, when will it ever end? But please in 5 years, don't come complaining because you getting paid 1500 Euros a month.