Pilot Redundancies at Thomas Cook
 

Thomas Cook Group have entered into a 90 day consultation period predicting up to 100 pilot redundancies.

Presumably this is due to the MYT merger?
Seems a high figure though - does that include MYT pilots or just TCX?
From their fleet of 25 TCX can only have about 350 pilots (unless my maths is way out), chopping 30% is a big cut.

If true, then is Tfly next?

Combined from the new merged airline i.e MYT and TCX

Is LIFO (Last In, First Out) proposed should this go ahead?

And could application of this lead to demotions as well?

:(

Although not illegal, it can be deemed as discriminatory so is not used these days as it leaves the company open to being taken to tribunal.

There is a certain amount of protection under TUPE. We had to do it recently and a matrix was drawn up, the ones with the lowest score were out.

Sorry, what's TUPE?

TUPE refers to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations, part of UK employment law. It's something best avoided (in the sense of not being a position to need it). It covers such things as transfer of your existing terms and conditions and length of service, etc if you get transferred from one company to another either through outsourcing or a buyout. There's associated redundancy laws and procedures for choosing who gets the chop if it isn't everyone, or a load of procedures to follow if it is everyone.

At first sight it's supposed to protect the employees but as with all laws tryingt o cover the general case, occasionally it definitely is not in the best interest of some.

Our contract specifically dictates that in the case of mutiple redundancy, the chopping will be based on LIFO.

100 redundancies from MYT and TCX combined.

however tcx will bear the brunt of the redundancies as they have recruited much more pilots recently. (about 40-50 this year)

Dont know when myt last recruited?

Remember that MYT has already been through the redundancy mill 3 years ago when a high number of the 'new pilots' were made redundant and all progression was stopped for three years. I hear it was not a pleasant experience.

Apparently they have few junior F/O's around 12-18 months service which were kept on after seasonal contracts. Most junior f/o's have 4+ years due to the earlier chopping.

I don't envy the next couple of months for either company,

Give it a year they'll be squealing for pilots. :rolleyes:

Yea, what they'll do is get rid of all the tcx pilots, and use summer only contract pilots from across the pond to deal with the busy periods.

Apparently Monarch will be recruiting similar nos to last year (50-60). Interviews start soon for next year.
Oh and LIFO falls foul of the age regs now (discriminates against younger pilots), whether it's in your contract or not (it's in mine too)!

Spanners, care to elaborate on what factors were used in your matrix?

LIFO does not discriminate against age. You can be 40 with 20 years and 60 with 10.

Yes, true, but if you look at the ages of the new joiners they will on average be younger. It is called "indirect" age discrimination. Ask a lawyer. I already have, and that's the advice I got.

Rush Approach

Lets say you are employed at a company for 5 years and have 3000 hours time on type.

Someone else joins your company and has only been there for one year, but has 5000 hours on type due to experience from his previous job. Are you saying that they should get rid of you and keep the newer guy for having more hours on type than you even though you have longer length of service.

Last in first out seems fair to me.

Redundancy is a minefield with different bodies applying the same laws in different ways. And the European laws are different to the UK laws. I expereinced this post 9/11 - here is a little of what I learned.

The Employment Rights Act of 1996 requires that an employer prrove that selection of redundees was done fairly, a simple policy of LIFO is not always enough. One element of this is that an employee is not made redundant - it's his or her job that is redundant. So if an employer, as part of the downsizing decides to dispose of an aircraft type, the pilots on a remaining fleet cannot be made redundant if the more senior pilots from the fleet which has been cut are retrained to take their jobs. In this case, they are 'dismissed for reasons of redundancy' but not technically made redundant themselves. These pilots may have a case for unfair dismissal. But beware, the statutory redundancy payments which tend to be the maximum awarded by an employment tribunal are not very generous. A settlement made directly with the employer is usually more benficial to the employee.

Another thing, if an employer finds another job before his or her redundancy date and resigns, they forfeit any claim for redundancy pay. They should hang on in there or write a carefuly worded letter stating that they have found another job and are having to take an earlier redundancy date. An employer making someone redundant cannot prevent an employee from leaving early to take up a new position. In any case, never use word 'resign'.

Anyone know if a company makes staff redundant they can not re-recruite into that position without offering the job back to the redundant personel first? OR is there a time limit on it?