Unpaid leave...
 

One month of unpaid leave?

effective form 18th of March for 1 month until further notice...

1 month or UFN? It's a different thing

“We believe that the current situation is temporary initially 1 month and this will be reviewed on a regular basis.”

The way how I understand above means UFN.

AGP closed. 2 a/c will shortly be re-registered and moved permanently to SAS mainline.

And what about crews based there?

I suspect A319 is one of our Scandinavian union friends. They are here to spread doom about SAIL and advance their agenda whilst maintaining the cloak of anonymity. If they had to sign off on every comment we wouldn’t hear a peep from them!

I don’t know what the future holds for the industry, SAS Mainline, SAIL or the Malaga base. Time will reveal all!

Sadly asking the question you ask is akin to pleading for your family as you are about to be mugged at knifepoint. In other words unlikely to get the answer you desire!

And I would suspect that you are one of the "soldiers of fortune" who so kindly contract your work to the highest bidder, that this industry has far too many of... and you still hide behind the anonymous callsign this forum provides...

The fact that the real Scandinavians provided enough capital by the savings that lead management go ahead with their plans, and can offer schemes with rosters and the likes that not even their own workers can dream about, would have even the lesser gifted of you raise your eyebrows and question the operation.

Please do yourself a favour and do a little research about where the planes are actually based, and how much work they have done in the past 6 months, and you would find that somebody is keeping a hand over operation, because utilisation of the planes and crew is among one of the worst in the industry.

So who is it that is mugged at knifepoint? The traveller who is just passing by or the family who provided the this offspring in the first place...

And yes - I am one of Scandinavian Vikings that still will be here when this is all over...

A question to SAIL-pilots;

Are you getting any form of economic compensation, since you are on forced leave? If yes, from whom?

In AGP Sail applied for unemployment benefits in Spain...

It is really strange that SAS emphasise in this video that nothing is Scandinavian:


But now they have financial problems, then it is the Scandinavian taxpayers money, they are asking for.

Why not ask EU or the World Bank for money? Or anybody not in Scandiland?

In Malaga SAIL crew are on ERTE Reduction of working hours 100%.

Government aid:
- 1098.09eur gross without kids
- 1254.86eur gross with one kid
- 1411.83eur gross 2+ kids

It means if you single without kids you will get 900eur net. Rent for a decent flat in Malaga is around 1000eur + utilities.

I guess those figures in Scandinavia are a bit different...

Yes, due to state aid. But varies from country to country.

@truckflyer,

Quote:

“Seriously where do you get such tripe, "highest bidder" - When you had your recruiters in Denmark Klaus, clearly knowing there was priority in hiring sons and daughters of the SAS pilots ahead of others who were better qualified.”

Care to elaborate? You are suggesting that recruitement in a nearly 75-year-old company with around 1,600 pilots is based on nepotism? That’s quite a statement without providing any form of evidence.
Have you ever attended a recruitement session?

:)

I can tell that you never made it to the actual assessment stage - and I believe I can answer you to as why... You do know that attitude is more important than skills when main airlines and larger cooperations are looking for a candidate? And that humbleness is a great part of that?

By reading your latest post I can tell you did not quite know that then, because what you refer to has nothing to do with nepotism - it has something to do with your attitude.
And have you ever given it any thoughts that a company has sovereign powers when it comes to deciding how and who to recruit? Thus, if the company decides to balance the demographics of a group of new hires by adding candidates from one of the most renowned flight schools you can do nothing about it? And by complaining you just disqualified yourself from future recruitement opportunities?

I sure hope you are well in your current position and that you don’t dwell too much of your lost chances with SAS.

And before I forget... I take it you changed the name of the recruitement officer - as publicly throwing somebody under the bus is not polite. And not quite according to GDPR.

Going back to SAIL. It was established in late 2017 as a subsidiary of SAS with the intention to operate 9 Irish registered aircrafts with crew employed by aviation recruitment firm - CAE based outside Scandinavia to benefit from the lower labour costs that are available almost anywhere in Europe outside Scandinavia.

Now after almost 3 years maybe it is time to discuss if they really achieved their target?

Or maybe their actual target was to get the leverage with the union to negotiate new pay deal?

What do you think future will bring to SAIL operation? At the end of the day this is a rumor network ;)

Always a joy to have PPRUNE substitute ones Netflix addition.

truckflyer, I sincerely hope that you have settled and found a place that suits you.
You seem to have something unresolved in your life. And frankly you sound like one of the many Norwegians who went across the pond to NAIA or PEA. Many returned believing they were aviation kings but soon found out that their personal profiles weren’t suitable for airlines.

Good luck whereever your journey may take you.

Now back to ‘Tiger king’.

Back to SAIL.

Are simulator sessions running to keep crew current, ready to start-up when the time comes?

I think they play an important role in the overall SAS group. They allow SAS compete on some routes which they could never do using mainline salary costs.

With Michael O'Leary announcing yesterday he expects a significant price war amongst airlines, I think SAIL's role can only increase in keeping SAS competitive and to survive in the medium term.

Just my two cents.

That is quite a bold statement, especially considering how factually incorrect it is.

New hired SAS mainline pilots and upgrades on forced part time in winter, only variable roster and starting salary below 3500€ gross for new hires and 5500€ gross for new upgrades. Payscale is 24 steps before topping out below SAIL LHR captains pay. Payscale for FOs capped at 5500€ after 14 years. This was all before COVID-19.

Can you please elaborate on how this ”mainline salary cost” hurts our comptetetiveness?

Not true either though. That was the -15 agreement and that pay scale didn't hold long.

Is that gross? Bloody hell I never realized how underpaid SAS pilots were.

Oh but it IS true. But due to yearly CLA pay increases the F/O cap at step 14 as of 1 April has increased to 68091 SEK (~6200 EUR) GROSS per month (Stockholm base).

Fightthepower, I think I misunderstood your post. Are you saying a SAS new hire who eventually becomes a full time Captain will earn less than a LHR Captain. I did not know this.

​​​​​​
Most certainly still is true for payscale in Sweden.

Definitely, and not only that. A new hire who eventually becomes a captain will be on forced part time in winter on a variable roster further reducing his or her salary. Summers of course full time with no more than two days off in a row.

Whilst the LHR captain enjoys their full time 5/4 roster year round.

Obviously this may be a moot point as everybodys job is at risk during the crisis.

Im really sick and tired of the narrative that management is trying to push ”blah blah maintain competetiveness”.

It is about fragmenting the pilot group into as many little pieces as possible much like Ryanair did once upon a time.

All of SAS mainline went on strike for a week in 2019 and still 25% of flights operated normally. Why do you think that is?

Oh yes. Yearly CLA pay increases achieved through pretty intense negotations and a strike or two.

Before that the numbers were even more laughable.

One of the reasons I never considered SAS mainline, their pay structure is not very competitive.
However I am guessing there is more "other" costs for the employees in SAS mainland. Such as social security, pensions etc? Which when you add this up makes the Scandinavian based pilots more expensive. However that is clear TC's at SAS are not very good for new joiners, but I guess there must be some still on older contracts that were quite lucrative, or has it all been restructured?

The cap yes, but the number (€5500) was off.

The total cost of an employee has to be regarded. Whether a SAIL pilot is cheaper/more expensive is not trivial to decide, unless you sit on the actual numbers. And what's CAE's commission in this? The real benefit of having pilots through an agency is they cost you nothing through COVID19.

It has been calculated and benchmarked over and over, they are more expensive, end of discussion. And it hasn’t been difficult, their t&c has been made very public by CAE, cost of social security is just a search on google away.

And it is not really that strange when considering the following

1. Top of payscale equivalent from day 1, both for FO and CAPT. It takes a mainline pilot 14/24 years to reach the same. That is some serious compounded difference.

2. All pilots on fixed 5/4 in SAIL compared to over half of pilots (still, even after the strike) on variable roster in scandi. Meaning you have to hire more pilots to cover the same operation. Roughly 10% more according to SAS themselves when we try and increase the number of pilots on fixed roster.

3. Full time all year in SAIL wheras new upgrades in scandi are forced on part time in winter or there will be no upgrade.

And thats all even before getting into the whole discussion of setting up a new airline with all of its associated and duplicated costs. Offices, staff, operational support, post holders, permits.

Does anybody seriously buy the whole competitive salary structure argument?

... AND the no. of SAIL admin staff is 40+ acc. SAS management. None of which would be needed if the 9 a/c would be operated by SAS themselves. So they are an financial extra burden that need to be outweighed by lower crew costs.

I’m no financial expert but I fail to see how the “saved” crew cost of crews for just 9 a/c will outweigh the 40+ admin cost.

Let me get this right, so from what you wrote above A319 there is no cost savings for SAS to be running the whole SAIL operation.

It all makes perfect sense to me apart of one detail - why SAIL operation is still ongoing and 9 a/c are still Irish reg?

It would actually be a cost saving for SAS to cancel the whole CAE/SAIL deal?

Not to mention the future fine for CAE in Malaga...

Yes. SAIL was only set up bust the pilot unions and start the outsourcing of SAS main a/c types. A life long dream of SAS management.

Regarding the cost saving, you tell me how SAIL saves money for SAS? A/c, fuel, handling, maintenance are still paid by SAS. The only variable parts are the admin and FD/CC cost. Is 40+ admin making this cheaper?

SAS crews are more flexible than year long 5/4 but leave that out of the equation.

AGP fines I never heard of.

CAE in Malaga have been controlled by labour inspection and fined for employing cabin crew without permit to act as a work agency from what I understood. Correct me if I am wrong ;)

Now the Spanish cabin crew union claims that there have been no solution found with CAE and started now a legal case in court against illegal employment of 60 cabin crew by CAE in Malaga base.

Now SAS have announced that they will be laying off about 5000 employees in Scandinavia, I doubt the unions will accept SAIL restarts.

CAE Crewing Services already sent to their crew employed in AGP communication on intention to initiate a collective dismissal process due to production and organizational matters.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/...39988?mode=amp

FWIW, the platform strategy (SAS Main, SAIL and external suppliers) remains the chosen path forward.

With several hundred redundancies in the pipeline I doubt the unions have much of a negotiating position from which to start. SAIL isn't loved by the legacy employees, but they are part of the company and in no way deserve to be harassed or looked down upon.

Nobody looks down on them. We are all aware that they are skilled colleagues in this industry trying to make a living.

Look, being replaced by cheaper/more efficient labour is regrettable but inevitable in a free market in the long run. Everybody gets that, ”legacy employees” or otherwise. Hence the overall continuous downward pressure on t&c in the last two decades.

What ”legacy employees” are having a problem with in this particular case is being replaced by more expensive labour, as is the case with SAIL.

There simply is no justification for it, other than dividing the employees into as many little groups as possible with the sole purpose of diminishing their negotiating leverage.

Malaga base closed down and redundancy deal signed by the unions. AGP slots to be operated by SAS mainland.

Sorry to hear that. Any news on the LHR staff?