Crew outraged over Kosovo employment

Adria staff from Slovenia to be replaced by Adria staff from Kosovo
The Association of Adria Airways Cabin Crew has announced that the company is hiring staff from Kosovo, while planning to fire more than 20% of its existing cabin staff in Slovenia. As outlined in the company’s restructuring plan, some 22% of Adria’s workforce will lose their jobs, most of them being cabin crew. The Association argues that they will be replaced by crew from Kosovo. The staff cuts will coincide with destination network reductions which are to be announced soon. While it is now being speculated that some routes from the airline’s Priština base will also be cut, none of the staff from Kosovo will lose their jobs, instead, more are being hired. In a letter addressed to the media, the Association said that cabin crew hired in Priština do not know Slovenian but will operate on flights out of Ljubljana. Furthermore, they claim that as foreigners, crew from Kosovo will not be subject to the terms of the new collective agreement nor the Employment Act which could lead to staff exploitation, thus compromising cabin safety. The Association also asks whether tax payer’s money, to be used for a 50 million Euro bailout, will be spent on hiring foreign nationals while redundancy payments will be offered to Slovenian staff.

Adria Airways opened its base in Priština last summer with flights to several German cities. This summer it extended its offer out of Priština. However, the airline hasn’t recorded good results on most of its routes from Priština as it faces staunch competition from several low cost airlines. Adria cabin crew representatives have requested a meeting with officials from the Slovenian Transport Ministry. After being initially turned down, the Ministry has now invited cabin crew representatives for talks.

Hiring foreign cabin crew to replace in-house employees is not uncommon practice in the aviation industry. Just last month Australian low cost airline Jetstar came under fire after it was revealed it hired crew from Thailand to operate flights within Australia, working double the hours and half the pay. The scandal led an Australian senator to propose a bill to ban foreign based cabin crew to serve on Australian domestic flights. Similarly, several US airlines have come under fire for replacing American cabin crew with those from India.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:14

    there will be lots of deleted comments at the end of the day.

    however, not good this, Adria

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous09:22

    It is good for Adria, because of the lower costs. Greetings from Belgrade.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous09:50

    A very smart yet stupid move made by Adria.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous09:57

    Why not? Adria is a Company who wants enter in a market from a forgein state! so they have also hire forgein people from this state...In the normal production-industy (automotive, food and other) is this normal...but not for the air(plan)Industry?!?! i dont see any reason why not!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous10:38

    ^ It is not normal, as these workers from Pristina will be based in Slovenia and not in Pristina.

    ReplyDelete
  6. JU520 BEGLAX10:45

    if they keep the routes PRN to LJU,MUC and FRA I don t why they shouldn t employ Kosovo nationals.
    Carriers like LX or LH have as well Indian, Japanese and Chinese staff enroute to India,Japan and China.
    What I can see from the JP system, at least MUC,FRA flights out of FRA are doing well. At least they did during the past 5 months. Still that doesn t means anything. Adria has also good loads to LGW,CDG,SVO and IST and still faces losses on these routes.

    It s all a question of the how much will be employeed and the sure instinct the management will show in this delicate decision.

    ReplyDelete
  7. In Emirates majority of the crew does not speak Arabic

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous13:34

    @ Batman

    That is because the company has a much broader destination network and therefore need people from other nations to satisfy the passangers needs. Airlines such as Qantas, Singapore etc are all the same.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous14:43

    Kosovo employees are cheaper which is also OK for me.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Purger14:56

    Which nationality are cabin staff in easyJet, Ryanair, Wizzair...?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The other day, I flew Continental on a domestic flight and the flight attendant could barely speak English. She sounded like from Haiti. I am not against hiring foreigners but many airlines as well other big corporations are abusing this, paying them minimum wage, forcing them working twice as more hours and no benefits whatsoever. The sad thing is that our government doesn't do anything about it. The airline and corporate lobbyists use their money to buy politicians and instead tell them what they have to do.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I fly Continental (I guess United now) and have never run into that. I guess times are changing. I am quite impressed that this post has been up 6 hours and no crazy comments that need to be deleted.

    The bottom line is that passengers want cheap flights and the airlines want a profit. So they are finding ways to do both, but we have to realize that this outsourcing to the cheapest dollar leads to a race to the bottom. Domestic workers are laid off, get desperate, start working for less money, then foreign workers start accepting less money to keep jobs, and the cycle repeats.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous16:56

    That shouldn*t be a problem for a private airline ,but Adria is public owned ..so when Slovenians pay taxes they want to get something back.
    If not money then jobs .
    Unfortunately this practice is common everywhere today in the world.
    If a company makes profit that profit goes into pockets of the private owners.
    If that same company makes losses
    that losses have to pay tax payers.

    20% may not be much,but that is only the beginning..
    It will end up with 80 %in the next five years.
    Also common practice in a lot of companies today..

    That all also has political implications.
    Slovenia risked a war to get rid of Yugoslavia ..a main argument was that Slovenians were financially exploited by other republics.
    Now Slovenian taxpayers spend their money on the Albanian project Kosovo.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous20:03

    Slovenia a lousy province of Kosovo

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous20:47

    I love how cabin staff everywhere bring cabin safety into the argument. I get it, they take the safety courses regularly, but really how hard is it. 99.99% of the time their activities are identical to waiters/waitresses, with only difference being the altitude.
    Crew from Kosovo will do just as good of a job as the one from Slovenia.

    The days of cabin crew glory are long gone.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous21:26

    Hey a waitress is expected to know basic CPR to keep you from dying if you choke.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous21:56

    this adria should close down. new company with ownership of all ex yu airliners should go for YU SAS airlines!!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous21:58

    Now Slovenian passengers will have to learn Albanian to understand the cabin crew of their
    "national airline" .

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous22:12

    I know some Slovenians who are working as waiters/waitresses in Austria although they have a degree from university .
    Although so many well educated young people in Slovenia dont get a job ..
    our national airline offers jobs to Albanians..
    Everyone saying that should not be a problem are right IN CASE THE AIRLINE IS PRIVATE..
    but Adria and its employees wages are paid by tax payers !
    So stop subsidizing that airline !
    Privatize Adria or let it go bancrupt !

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous23:12

    When is Air France going to announce the schedule for flights to BEG,ZAG,and LJU?
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  21. When I flew Jetstar from Melbourne to Tokyo, no crew member on board was an Aussie, all were Thais...

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous07:51

    Doubt that Air France will implement any changes to its current flight schedule, at least to Belgrade. It has been operated like this for years.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I don't see why not.

    This is normal. If they can get it cheaper (especially at a time of financial crisis), why not.

    We're not talking about tea and cookies here, not life and death.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous10:56

    Air France is flying to LJU :) by Regional! :)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous13:40

    CPR !? Big deal! I bet that half the passengers on the plane can perform CPR. I'd love to see some stats on how many times they actually performed CPR or anything outside regular hospitality activities.

    Also, there are quite a few taxi drivers with university degrees, some even with Master or PhD. That is sad, but not the topic for aviation blog.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anonymous17:42

    We should not only replace the cabin crew with Albanians but also the pilots,the managers of Adria and the members of the government!
    Obviously the Slovenians are not able to run their own country.

    Hmmm...maybe we also should move the capital from ljubljana to prishtina.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anonymous18:03

    If the cabin crew is cheaper then only their employer profits . but me as a passenger ?
    i will have to pay the same price !
    Nobody can tell me the tickets will become cheaper !
    To say a cabin crew member is the same as a waiter/waitress is either
    ignorant or stupid.
    waiters/waitresses are earning most of their income by tips or
    trinkgeld...what a shit !

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous18:19

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous20:45

    Instead of paying cabin crew like waiters they should waiters pay as cabin crew !
    No , they have to work twice as much for half of the money...
    Maybe we should re-introduce slavery for the sake of the customers and the economy ?!
    What everyone forgets is that people who earn more money also spend more money !
    BTW...in general being a waiter is a tough job ..working hours of minimum 10 hours also the weekends
    ..you people dont know what it means to be a waiter..

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous18:43

    Hey Adria crew - what goes around comes around.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Anonymous17:27

    Well governments aren't interested in jobs and peoples good anymore we should all know that here in australia our goverment have percentage of ownerships in many different business, Airlines, TELECOMMUNICATION ETC MOST OF WHICH HAVE CALL centres in india etc obviously shares are minority and can be overuled but when they did have control before privatisation they could have had a contract stating with the sale no jobs would be exported oversea's which doesnt happen. not suprised by this its western influence

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anonymous21:46

    Bet the people now wish Slovenia had not recognised Kosovos independence.

    ReplyDelete

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