The union representing Adria Airways’ pilots has announced a series of strikes beginning next Sunday after it failed to reach an agreement over their new collective bargaining agreement with the company’s management. The strikes, each lasting three days, will run from September 8 at midnight until September 10 at 23.59, from September 18 at midnight until September 20 at 23.59 and from September 30 until October 2. The existing collective agreement expires today. The Slovenian Pilots Union said it urged the management to begin talks as early as last summer, however, they only started this June. "As a union, given the current circumstances, we are left with no other option then to go on strike and make it clear to the management that we are no longer able to do our jobs under existing working conditions”, the union noted.
Pilots claim that rights within their existing contracts are regularly breached. Crew duty times have been significantly extended, while there have also been complaints of more out-of-base operations. Pilot union leader, Luka Radovic, said, "Pilots need to work in line with the collective agreement. The consequences are fatigue and sick leave. Instead of the company scheduling thirty flights per day, there should be five less. This would provide enough standby personnel in the event an aircraft is grounded or there is a lack of staff". Mr Radovic previously noted, "We are under a great deal of stress. The flexibility we provide to the company is quite high compared to previous years. We also work more than fifty hours a week and Adria has been breaching the collective agreement for some time".
Adria Airways said it still hopes to avoid a strike and will continue negotiations with the pilots throughout next week. The last time the airline’s pilots staged a walk-out was in March 2017. The industrial action lasted for two days. Following the announcement of further strikes, a deal was reached with the company's management. The potential industrial dispute comes at a time when Adria is seeking to win back the trust of its passengers following operational issues experienced over the summer season. The union representing Adira Airways' cabin crew is also considering a possible walk-out should talks with the management fail.
Comments
Bad period to be a Slovenian aviation fan. With German economy slowing down things will only get worse.
These pilots are better off finding a job elsewhere and just let Adria die....the company is in a rough position and the recovery is very unlikely. All due because of very bad managing decisions.
Bice zivot
But no, let's bankrupt the company and then mooch the country's social benefits while interviewing and having no flight within the last 3/6 months.
Usually in ACMI there is a daily penalty if you are unable to operate. I would imagine that to be at least 20-30k/day/aircraft. Don't think JP can sustain this.
And there will be more co-operation with the media.
Also, CRJ is useless type rating as well as people who have been in any job (not only aviation) for a very long time usually have difficulties integrating into a new environment.
I'd say 50% of the pilots would find a new job easily, and the other 50% with a lot of difficulties, but they probably wouldn't be unemployed forever.
But the fact is that for majority Slovenians leaving their home village is something they would never consider. And employers know this, so they can offer much lower salaries because - where is a Slovenian pilot going to go if he only wants to live/work in Slovenia? Monopolies aren't a nice thing on job markets as well.
How do you know all these things? Are you in any way affiliated with Adria's pilots?
If they want to work less, they have less work hours. They say they are played by work hour.
So, if they do not want a pay rise, each month they will get 20% less in they pay check.
The airport of Ostrava recently launched a highly paid PSO for each 11 weekly feeder flights to MUC and VIE.
It is said that JP is very interested which makes sense given their history with these type of flights in Europe/EU opening a base there with one plane, CR7 or S20 and operate 22 short flights a week. In the tender it says it has to be a feeder airline with at least interlines or codeshares to other airlines from the two hubs. Would work perfectly too for Adria with their SA membership for connecting flights by LH and OS.
Probably pilots don't want to be based in Czechia for the next 5 years.
Who is going to pay for ad-hoc wet leases in the middle of summer season? Hundreds of thousands (more likely) millions in pax compensations for delays and cancellations? Loss of revenue due reduced bookings, as everybody with common sense now buys tickets with other carriers if possible? Pay all the outstanding debt to suppliers?
And all this before we even start the dead winter season.
Because their employer sends them there and pays them for it.
Surely Adria will apply. Of course we all don't know if they will win the contract- but if they do, with 5 million more in their pockets that will help them survive the winter.
I didn't know that my employer has every right to do whatever he wishes. Even to relocate me wherever he wants. Are you sure about that?
Then some pilots will have to choose between moving to OSR or redundancy.
This is how the real world works. Not that JP will be here long enough for their pilots to see this.
I'd imagine there are some startup fees and monthly payments from there on.
I doubt anyone in the business is naive enough to give JP cash for a 4-year contract in advance.
Look at Ryanair. The conditions finally improved, however there is already a master plain in force to drive them down again. Crews are not a work tools that management can use at will according to their moments of inspiration. And moving people around the world is not something anyone should accept lightly. Period.
But, like you said. This is going to end bad no matter what the pilots do. All thanks to the brilliant management.
Again, any proof to what you're saying or just posting bs? Unless you post all the numbers (average monthly sectors, yearly duty time), your comments are unsubstantiated.
I still don't understand why some people (who probably have no clue at what's going on at Adria) try to portray pilots as overpaid, underworked bus drivers.
only info is that someone has posted that the average number of monthly sectors flown is 55.
let's assume the EASA 28 consecutive days as a month for the sake of simple math. FTL.205 gives you basically a thoretical 10 sectors per day (with apropriate shortened FDP) and FTL.210 gives you 190 duty hours per month and 100 hours of flight time per month maximum.
so with as someone states above an average flight time of 1h, i fail to see the math on any kind of reaching EASA limits with respect to daily/monthly sectors flown and flightime. So the only "problem" could be the duty time and a bad organizaton of the process (a not that much flight time, but comparably a lot of down time between flights).
But as said, i don't know what is with the fixation on the 55 monthly sectors...can be fully legal and way below EASA limits without knowing why this is a problem. Speaking legally (i.e. what are regulations saying). Can fully understand that it can get tiring, but if it's quite a bit below maximum, it's no wonder the management wants to push the productivity higher....and that is a thing that a collective agreement is for. But when no collective agreement is in force, you run on regulatory minmums/maximums, and that are probably way higher.
So as long as the pilot's union doesn't make public their exact-ish numbers, we can all speculate a bit. Or it would even help if someone would post adria's collective agreement, which ended this weekend, and we would se the number from the collective agreement, and by which number the maximums were below EASA prescribed maximums. I would wager the numbers were miles away from any regulatory maximums.
No one was saying that maximum monthly/yearly block time was reached at any point due to the aforementioned problem (short sectors, long duty time). So calling Adria's pilots lazy and underworked seems unfounded. Monthly/yearly block times are not the only metrics used to determine hard work/laziness.
like i mentioned in the previous post...this is a match of showing muscles for a collective agreement which would determine lower maximus. and each party has their own set of cards...the management has the above mentioned card of doing nothing and thereby forcing pilots to go to EASA maximums, and the pilots hold the card of prolonged strike and thereby forcing the management to declare bankrupcty, if the strike goes on for too long, as the liquidity will evaporate in a second.
But as always: we will see what the future brings.
Another couch airline manager... Its not a question of greedy folks. Its a question of having decent pilots flying for Adria. Thats what most of us in Slovenia care about. Bad conditions are deterring good and experienced pilots - these had the luxury to go elsewhere. What we are left with are a bunch of rookies or imported pilots replacing the experienced... If you had actually flown with Adria you should have been able to observe the quality decline. Believe me, I fly over 60 flights a year, and am becoming scared after several strange situations or nasty hard landings (in perfect weather...).
Normal people would care about safety and comfort, but the typical Slovenian jealous couch commentator is irritated since the pilot has a higher salary than him...
I support these pilots (even though I would be affected on 2 already booked flights...). And if this accelerates bankruptcy, let it be... After suffering a few months at least we should be getting some normal legacy airlines appearing in LJU.