ALPL

Wet-leasing is the practice of airlines hiring aircraft with crew, maintenance and insurance (ACMI) to either cover an unforeseen short-term need or when business needs a longer-term (seasonal) capacity increase without necessarily buying and manning new aircraft. Wet-leasing is growing rapidly and experts predict such leasing agreements to become both longer in time and more frequent in nature in 2019. Wet-lease operators seem to agree with this outlook and have started preparations by consolidating, growing their fleet and increasing wet-lease offerings. What lies behind this sudden success and the growing need for more “seasonal capacity” and short-term fixes? [It certainly isn’t the longer summers /winters in Europe.]

In reality, a large share of wet-leasing in Europe – and this is the share that is booming – has little to do with sudden growth or unforeseen short-term needs. It is a business strategy to replace airlines’ own operations at a lower cost. Wet-lease providers like CityJet, Go2Sky, Adria Airways, Danish Air Transport & Air Atlanta promise airlines flexibility, a better commercial risk management and lower operating costs for both equipment and aircrew. This “bonus-effect” of wet-lease is boosting its popularity, making it a desirable feature for many European airlines.

Was the EU Employment Commissioner Marianne Thyssen right to tell Michael O’Leary that the “EU internal market is not a jungle” and there are rules that employers should abide by?  Her statement was indeed correct. But it was also a highly optimistic representation of reality on the ground and revealed how powerless the EU can sometimes be. This may now change with the project of a new EU Labour Authority (ELA), that would allow employees and employers to deal more easily with complex aspects of cross-border labour mobility and to better fight against social fraud.

Often employees fall victim to exploitation and social fraud because of existing loopholes in legislation and lax oversight on the national level. An airline may register its Principle Place of Business e.g. in Malta, hire crews from a staffing agency in Lithuania and base them in Brussels. Understaffed or uninterested labour authorities would pass the ball between each other if crew need to enforce their labour rights. Often, the only solution is seeking the answers in Court – a costly and time-consuming endeavour. This is why it took two decades for Ryanair employees to finally dismantle the myth that if you work on an Irish aircraft, you are an Irish employee. It wasn’t until the EU Court of Justice issued a verdict on a case – and the EU Employment Commissioner spelled it out to its CEO – that Ryanair fell in line by finally offering local labour contracts to its employees.

We all agree that European aviation needs skilled, talented flight crews to underpin the growing aviation sector. But where to find and how to attract them? The question is even more pressing now that airlines have woken up to the fact that the pilots queuing at their doorsteps, coming from varied supply sources, may not always be up to the airline quality standards.

The solution – as ECA outlines in a recent position paper – will require sweeping changes: a different approach to candidate screening, improving the attractiveness of the profession and its working conditions, and bringing pilot training into the 21st century. The backbone of the future European pilot body is at primary and secondary school as we speak. It is with those young people that the industry should seek early-stage engagement.

Reaching out to children in schools is a sure way of promoting the pilot career and creating enthusiasm and motivation. Children who have no relatives working in aviation would rarely consider it as a dream job or a viable career option. This is why having a presentation of the opportunities in the aviation sector early on would help them – boys and girls – and their parents to plan ahead and consider a flying job.

What image do you associate with a “pilot”? Most likely, 9 out 10 would imagine a typical white, male pilot in a uniform. 

This image is so deeply engrained in our conscience that it has become an additional career barrier for aspiring female pilots. This barrier comes on top of the already very expensive pilot training, which is often cited as the largest obstacle on the way to the cockpit. Women pilots rarely say they have been informed about the pilot career as a potential option and sometimes even remember being discouraged in school to pursue it. This invisible barrier is one of the things that a wealth of initiatives worldwide are trying to change. One of the European drivers trying to shatter the male-dominance of aviation is Aviadoras.

Born a year ago, Aviadoras is a project kick-started by the Spanish Pilots Association SEPLA. In those 12 months, Aviadoras has grown from a local initiative to a leading example for all transport workers on how to attract more female talent and promote professions which were previously considered as a typical male domains.

Next year will be an election year: we will elect the new Members of the European Parliament and a new European Commission will be appointed. With the major political parties already in campaigning mode, it’s time to look at the achievements of the current Commission. And also to remind about some of the promises that were made almost four years ago.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission wanted to “ensure that social dumping has no place in the European Union.” In fact, we see quite the opposite: social dumping has become the norm, not the exception in the European aviation industry. With the low cost market leaders in Europe setting the standards, the “race to the bottom” has not yet stopped. The new contracts for pilots of Ryanair Sun in Poland are a chilling example of everything that went wrong with employment & working conditions in Europe.

Under the EASA Flight Time Limitations, the maximum flight duty period (FDP) may be extended by up to 2 hours at the Commander’s Discretion (‘CD’) or even 3 hours if in-flight rest facilities are provided. As explained in a recent ECA “SpotOn” guidance paper, this extension of a regular flight duty must be understood as a very exceptional ‘fix’ for some of the uncertainties in commercial aviation. Because even an operator’s most cautious planning of flight pattern cannot cover all circumstances causing delay or excessive fatigue – although good planning can greatly help to reduce such situations.

However, ‘cautious planning’ is understood in different ways by different people. A most notable and deplorable example hit the headlines in the past summer, resulting in the dismissal of several crew members who rightly refused to operate under discretion. On top of that, pilots are reporting increased pressure from their airlines to use commander’s discretion.

To prevent misuse, EASA requires the operator to provide their crews with ‘robust’ rosters, i.e. rosters that under normal circumstances are realistically achievable in real operations, and to improve the planning when missing this target.

At this point, the commander – as being the airline’s representative on scene – is entitled to evaluate the situation and decide on best judgement as regards flight safety, the customers’ need for transport and the crew’s health. The regulator’s original idea was to entitle the commander to extend – but also to reduce – any FDP under the aspect of suitability, necessity and proportionality.

The truth about pilot shortage is far more elaborate than what many in the industry are trying to portray. Factors such as the region, type of operation, experience level of the pilot group need to be considered each time we speak about “the pilot shortage”.

So it’s time we stop talking about the pilot shortage and how to fix it. Instead, it is time the industry and aviation authorities look at the policies and practices for attracting, selecting, training and enabling the right talent, as well as providing an attractive and stable career. In a series of articles, we will give our views on how these could be achieved.

The liberalisation and outsourcing of pilot training swayed the pendulum in the opposite direction. An attractive marketing pitch by training organisations sold a childhood dream of becoming a pilot for more or less €100.000. Suddenly almost anyone with deep pockets could become a pilot.

But it turns out, accepting candidates predominantly on the basis of who can afford to pay the very high costs of the program is not good for the airlines. The profession has become accessible to candidates with questionable set of skills, and low motivation and capabilities.

The sad fact is that once out of flight school, some graduates are very often faced with the reality that a licensed pilot does not necessarily equate to a skilled or qualified pilot up to a standard of an airline.

Major European airlines, pilots and cabin crew organisations are joining forces to demand decent social standards and clear rules for the industry to abide by. The call comes when aviation stakeholders & decision-makers meet in Vienna for the high-level European Aviation Summit under the Austrian Presidency. Just a day before, several Transport Ministers urged the EU Commission to come up with concrete measures to achieve a ‘socially responsible connectivity’ and to ensure healthy and fair competition on Europe’s aviation market. 

After years of operating in a Single Market with economic freedom but segmented labour law and social security systems, the evidence of detriment to the industry is mounting. Certain airlines are no longer competing based on services and products but on ‘engineering’ their social and employment practices. Crew are faced with deteriorating working conditions and precarious atypical contracts, as a result of ‘inventive’ employment set-ups that were born out of legal gaps and grey areas in the EU and national frameworks. However, the European ‘Social Agenda’ for aviation – promised since 2015 by the EU Commission as a countermeasure – has not taken much form or shape yet. In a joint statement airlines and employees therefore fill this gap by proposing several measures to be taken and call upon decision-makers to act swiftly.

Please read the ALPL Press Release (German)