This is only applicable in USA not in the rest of the world.

Don’t work for these kind of companies in the first place. 👍🏻

Easy to say « do not work there » when this is the only company giving you the opportunity to enter the pilot market and give you a contract… everybody knows that without some hours on a CS25 aircraft 95% of the airlines will not even bother answering to your application, even more if you have an atypic profile.

So yes SmartLynx has many bad points, but most of the people use it as an hour building airline and for that purpose thank god they exist and don’t ask 500h on Type to apply. Thanks to this, pilots can join the pilot market and be more credible to legacy airlines. The only problem is are they really going to sue you if you don’t pay their contractual penalty when you want to leave.

Many left without paying, noone will sue you, at the worst they wont give you your reference letter, hours certificate or whatever you ask them, they will simply ghost you and that's it..they are just a bunch of bottom feeder scumbags that can only prosper in pockets of legislative grey areas where no real contracts, securities and T&Cs are applied.

I completely agree with @TheEdge.
You won't gain anything, but it's important to understand that you won't lose anything either. Simply having worked at Smartlynx is reason enough for brokers, HR, or assessment panels to scrutinize you and your performance closely.
Been there, done that, seen it all.

Not that advance. They hired in the past a captain who is not actually a captain. They were not doing any SIM check until recently so god know who they hire. Their background check or so must be joke. They hire many pilots who left their previous companies for various reasons, disciplinary issues, CRM issues or court cases due to contractual disagreements. So this must shed a light. You can see a pilot in this company who change 7-8 company in 13-14 years. At the end bottom of the pyramid.

Many airlines offer you only contract for 1-2 years max 3 years and some contracts are just for the summer.. To have 7-8 airlines in 13-14 years in your C.V is kind of normal when you are working as contract pilot.

Smartlynx now orders all pilots to sign the new contract by 16 Dec. No comment on what will happen if this is not signed, other than they confirm they will refuse to pay bonus in the following year. As the company is now massively over-crewed they will use any means to get people to leave. 737 jobs are about, we have other options. I guess Arbus the same, but 15-20 Airbus with no work in 3 months time.

What's in the new contract?
Do they pay social prestations ?

The claim that the company has a surplus of crew is a misguided mantra. Most pilots have chosen to take unpaid leave during the winter months—either to spend time with their families over the holidays or to avoid flying in Turkey's poor weather conditions for a laughably low salary.
When summer comes, things will return to the usual state of affairs.
The company's mindset seems to mirror yours: planning only for the short term.
If you're looking for pilots for the summer season, you need to start recruiting in the winter—not in April, when it's already too late.

I don't understand. If they have a surplus of pilots as you say, why are they then hiring more pilots. I know personally that they have 2 classes for the A320 starting in January and February.

Probably because they don't know how many pilots will leave during winter.
​

This is not a kind reminder but a fearful plea from management, spiced up with a hint of threats and sprinkled with false claims about a "large number of pilots signing the new contract." In just two days, 12 bus drivers have resigned, and the company is now assessing the damage that could result if this trend continues:

"Dear Pilots,

We understand your concerns regarding the recent contract changes and particularly limit for partially covered days (illness/ unfit/ fatigue/ special occasion leave). We want to explain the changes and reasoning behind them in more detail.

First, we must emphasize that safety has been and will remain our top priority and will never compromise that. Second – we want to make it clear that our aim is not to limit the option of reporting fatigue or unfit condition, but to work on the long-term goal – to create working conditions, where pilot fatigue is not common at all.

The changes in the contract are carefully made based on the data we have analyzed over the last two years as well as industry benchmarks.

As per the new contract, section of “Other coverage”:

The company will:

cover in total the first 10 days of illness/unfit/fatigue/special occasion leave at 50% of the set fees. (already more beneficial to pilots than in similar airlines in the industry)
cover severe illness cases that occur on operational base while performing duties on behalf of the Client (such as covid, monkey pox, hajj flu etc.) until travel to NIA is arranged.
work closely with pilots to ensure improved roster planning and communicate more effectively to ensure pilots proactively inform the company in case there is a risk of fatigue – in advance.
Our aim is not to reduce fatigue reporting, but to reduce the probability of fatigue as such.

The company will not:

Compromise the safety and change safety policies – safety first, always.
Limit the days you can report fatigue/ unfit/ illness.
Based on the number of fatigue/illness/unfit reports within the last two years, we are confident that the newly set limit will have minimal to no effect on most of the pilots, and moreover, we are committed to review each case individually.

As the company evolves, we also periodically reconsider the contracts and see how we can collectively improve, and we will continue to do so.
The new terms and conditions are the best we can offer you in the current market!"

Well, there is a plethora of South American and Ukranian desperados that are available to replace them.
As I said before, SLX has start dates for January and February.

Ukrainian pilots are currently flying with Maltese license validations while awaiting the completion of the necessary exams to obtain their EASA licenses. At present, they are the backbone of the company, willingly taking on tasks that others would never agree to.
Until they acquire their EASA licenses...

As for the contract situation, my opinion is that the company will gradually replace the non-compliant individuals (those who have not signed the new contract), one by one, as new pilots complete their line checks and sign the new, less favorable contract themselves.

Anyone knows which hotel chain they are using in Nigeria and India?

I think it’s best for you to forget about SLX. Just as the A330 sector has been shut down, they are now phasing out the B737 as well.
The new management is incapable of securing work for the aircraft.
The A320 is surviving solely because of operations in India.
If that work were to end tomorrow, the entire company would collapse.

Lets hope it will happen soon.

Like TheEdge has said best to just avoid and leave this company alone to succumb to natural selection and let it go. Its in pain and if it was an animal you'd put it to sleep as the kindest thing to do.

Stay away from these post Soviet bandits of the Baltics