The Pilots’ Professional Association criticizes opaque employment practices in the wet lease business. He wants to involve the officers in this.
When an airline not only leases the aircraft, but also leases the crew at the same time, it is known as wet leasing. This summer, for example, Eurowings is using aircraft and crew from Avian Express and Air Baltic, Kondor is working with SmartLinks and Sundar, and Tuifli is using a plane and crew from Lithuanian GetJet*. Used to be.
Wet leasing is especially popular with airlines to be able to meet demand very instinctively, sometimes at peak times or in unforeseen circumstances, without hiring additional staff. However, the Cockpit Association is now criticizing the fact that Germany and Europe are seeing “the growing expansion of wet leasing as a permanent means of reducing costs”.
“opaque employment practices”
According to the Pilots’ Professional Association, there is a lack of wet leasing support through collective agreements between airlines and unions. This leads to social dumping, i.e. shifting to countries where the same labor and social standards as in Germany do not apply.
According to the Cockpit Association, “Recently, more and more companies specializing in this business model are operating in the market, sometimes with opaque employment practices.” These will push pilots into bogus self-employment or practice dubious temporary employment through agencies.
Collected data should go to the authorities
On the lessee’s side, “even established companies accept this with acquiescence,” criticizes the head of the cockpit association, Stephen Hirth. Now someone will “do everything to dry up these dubious forms of wet leasing”.
The Cockpit Association states that in this context it collected and evaluated extensive data on employment models and flight movements last year. When asked, she did not want to be named. The lessees concerned were informed earlier and the data would also be passed on to the responsible authorities. In this case, customs is responsible.
Association calls for wider control
“As in the fight against outright bogus self-employment in air traffic, which is particularly prevalent in Ireland, authorities are now empowered to control bogus self-employment and the illegal hiring and wetting of workers in the subcontinent. Called to do. to put an end to leasing providers and these suspected conspiracies,” demands the association – Cockpit Boss Hearth.
*Correction: First stated at this point that Tuifly uses jets from Smartlynx and European Air Charter. However, these are full charter partners of Tui and other tour operators, not wet lease partners of the airline Tuifly. Please forgive the mistake.
