Air Berlin filing for bankruptcy?
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is Fly Niki trying to save itself ?
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So the Pilots throw a sickkie and the Airline in even more stress than it is already. The Airline goes bust and without doubt the Pilots will be the ones who get jobs - might not be where they want to be - whilst the Ground Staff end up on the rock n roll. #great
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The Airline goes bust
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The irony is that from the limited funds airberlin has available, the pilots are the only ones who get money from those funds - while salaries at the moment are paid by an insolvency fund and not the employer, airberlin has to pay the balance for all salaries that exceed a statutory cap - and these are the salaries of the better earning pilots.
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At least one airline I know of who is involved are going to be asking for records and opinions on crews before offering them joining interviews. They are not going to be automatically taking everyone and so calling a sickie might not be the wisest move right now...
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I have not had to deal with an employer going bankrupt (yet...), but I can hardly imagine how much stress this puts on all of the staff. How will they pay their bills and mortgages, what will happen in a month, three months, six months, etc.
I would expect (and hope) that many pilots who do not have a significant other that makes a good living individually and/or a large stash of cash saved for such situations would be under huge amounts of stress and should be calling in sick in this type of situation where you know your employer is bankrupt and you have no idea where you will end up, yet you are still expected to go to work every day as if nothing were amiss.
I would expect (and hope) that many pilots who do not have a significant other that makes a good living individually and/or a large stash of cash saved for such situations would be under huge amounts of stress and should be calling in sick in this type of situation where you know your employer is bankrupt and you have no idea where you will end up, yet you are still expected to go to work every day as if nothing were amiss.
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Apparently some have also have been told the conditions of the LH "rescue". Pilots not going to have LH contracts but Eurowings ones = 40% less for an AB Captain + Uncertainty about the A330s .
I understand from the media here that it is almost only Captains calling in sick. Same today apparently.
VC Cockpit not behind it.
I understand from the media here that it is almost only Captains calling in sick. Same today apparently.
VC Cockpit not behind it.
Last edited by ATC Watcher; 13th Sep 2017 at 06:38. Reason: new info
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How killing off their present company will help that? Either they take the -40% or won't be employed and can go to China. They do not cause trouble for a functional company (which would be the point of a strike to reach something) only expedite the sealed fate of a wreck. Who cares if it happens tomorrow or in 3 months other than themselves as the employees of the said wreckage?
Last edited by TBSC; 13th Sep 2017 at 07:01.
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On wonders how it took so long. Some years ago AB had some very strange looking policies, from the outside. They dubbed a large number of flights via PMI or Berlin. I could buy an AB local ticket from ABC to TFS but I had to stop off in PMI, when I could buy a local ticket with local competition on a direct flight for less money. Guess which was there choice. Unless you were in PMI or Berlin there were not many interesting direct flights within EU; or so it seemed.
Then, at one time, before the long-haul crazy adventure, they were operating (I think) 4 different short-haul types when the competition were all operating single types and obviously lower cost. How could they compete and survive with that business model. Did they not then buy LTU long-haul routes and venture over the horizon before they had consolidated their short-haul base? And they were trying to offer a premium short-haul service for LoCo prices and a high cost base.
It did not seem a recipe for success many years ago. And I don't think pilot salaries had anything to do with the demise. It seemed a daft business plan years ago at a time when the strong contenders were consolidating their own cost bases & business model.
Then, at one time, before the long-haul crazy adventure, they were operating (I think) 4 different short-haul types when the competition were all operating single types and obviously lower cost. How could they compete and survive with that business model. Did they not then buy LTU long-haul routes and venture over the horizon before they had consolidated their short-haul base? And they were trying to offer a premium short-haul service for LoCo prices and a high cost base.
It did not seem a recipe for success many years ago. And I don't think pilot salaries had anything to do with the demise. It seemed a daft business plan years ago at a time when the strong contenders were consolidating their own cost bases & business model.
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Apparently some have also have been told the conditions of the LH "rescue". Pilots not going to have LH contracts but Eurowings ones = 40% less for an AB Captain + Uncertainty about the A330s .
I understand from the media here that it is almost only Captains calling in sick. Same today apparently.
VC Cockpit not behind it.
I understand from the media here that it is almost only Captains calling in sick. Same today apparently.
VC Cockpit not behind it.
I have not had to deal with an employer going bankrupt (yet...), but I can hardly imagine how much stress this puts on all of the staff. How will they pay their bills and mortgages, what will happen in a month, three months, six months, etc.
I understand from the media here that it is almost only Captains calling in sick. Same today apparently
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They are getting paid for three months from an insolvency fund and so should be fine. Just like almost anyone else, pilots are not career civil servants with guaranteed lifelong employment, so redundancy is a risk they share with all employees who have to pay bills, mortgages.
Calling in sick is reportedly a small group of captains on very generous former LTU contracts. They are not taking the "we enjoyed it while it lasted" (i.e. for decade since LTU disappeared) approach, but expect to keep the conditions with a future employer. With is quite understandable from their perspective - but realistically, they are not the ones calling the shots. What they apparently fear is that because of their fat cat salaries airberlin and the potential investor want to get rid of them by way of closing down longhaul ops which would give airberlin the opportunity to make them lawfully redundant before the company is taken over by someone else. Bit like brushing up the high maintenance bride...
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The amount of money guaranteed however is less than half of the normal salary for pretty much all pilots at air berlin. So no, their pay isn't guaranteed.
Again, not entirely correct. Yes, there are quite a few ex LTU captains in that group, but they are not alone there by far. And they do not have better contracts than the rest of the airberlin pilots, in fact the last LTU contract is around 40% less pay than the current airberlin contract. And since airberlin has no exclusive longhaul fleet but rather only MFF (mixed fleet flying) there is no way one can fire only those old LTU guys, however, prospective buyers of parts of the company could of course cherry pick, which they cannot anymore if a normal germany procedure called Sozialauswahl (social selection) would be followed. And the sick out is only about going into that social selection procedure, which is governed by employment law.
A bit harsh of anyone to come on here to call out any AB crews trying to maintain their T&Cs given the strike record of LH's crews over the past couple of years.
The striking pilots are playing a very dangerous game IMHO - I understand that they might only have bad choices but it could backfire quite violently...