Please find below an update concerning:
- Crew rest onboard an aircraft during COVID-19
- Index Increase as of 01 October 2021
- Letter regarding repeated failure of cybersecurity testing
Crew rest onboard an aircraft during COVID-19
Article 71 (2) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 allows air carriers to request derogations from their competent authority during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to updates from the Chief Pilots Office, Cargolux has received authorisation to derogate from ORO.FTL.235 (b) and to use inflight rest facilities onboard, provided certain conditions are fulfilled.
With the latest changes in China and the long turnaround times due to the local COVID restrictions, the risk to run out of duty time and being forced to use the onboard rest facilities is significantly increased. Some colleagues also doubted that this derogation can be applied in case of unforeseen loading delays.
In a FSAG meeting in mid-September 2021, the existence and validity of such derogation was verbally confirmed by one of the inspectors of the DAC. Subsequently, the Delegation decided to send a letter to the EVP Flight Operations with the request to make the authorisation and derogation request more transparent. Please click on below links to read the respective letters.
Letter from the Delegation
Reply letter from the EVP Flight Operations
Letter from the Delegation with the request to amend the OM-A accordingly
We would like to underscore the importance to file a VR any time the use of Commander´s Discretion was necessary to complete a FDP. This is mandatory as per OM-A, Chapter 7, Section 8. In this context it is also important to know that in OM-A, Chapter 7, Section 10, performance indicators are defined to monitor the robustness of rostered pairings and rosters. E.g. it is mentioned that in case the actual FDP in operation exceeds the maximum FDP on more than 33% of the flights during a scheduled season, Cargolux must change the schedule and/or the crewing arrangements.
Index Increase as of 01 October 2021
According to the provisional result published by STATEC, the annual inflation rate of the national consumer price index (CPI) amounts to 2.7% for the month of September. With this result, the half-yearly average of the index linked to the 1.1.1948 base for the month of September exceeds the threshold of 895.78 points, thus triggering a new indexation.
The new index of 855.62 (old index: 834.76) came into force on 01 October 2021, resulting in a salary increase of 2.5%.
Letter regarding repeated failure of cybersecurity testing
Recently, some employees have received a letter from HR due to repeated failure of responding correctly to cybersecurity testing. The letter also included a threat of disciplinary consequences should this happen again.
Those tests are done by the IT Department and consist of false phishing emails, which must be treated by the employee accordingly.
As all employees, not only pilots, are affected by these tests, the issue will be handled by the Delegation. We already requested a legal opinion if it is permissible under Luxembourg’s labor law for an employer to set up such a test or trap for the employees.
Generally, we disapprove procedures of artificial traps that are being applied. In the meantime, we recommend to remove the Cargolux email account from all private devices and not to use any private device to access Cargolux related websites. We also recommend using the company provided iPad only for any duty related tasks and to only switch it on when required, e.g. before starting a Duty Period. Please click here to read the iPad policy for more information.
We also recommend to forward any email you think could be a spam or phishing attempt to cybersec@cargolux.com for verification.
