By Laurence Frost
PARIS, April 8 (Reuters) – Low-cost service Wizz Air WIZZ.L has changed its flight operations chief after he was apparently recorded telling his group to attract up a redundancy checklist of pilots who had been typically sick or “prompted grief” whereas sparing cheaper contract crew.
In a letter to workers dated April 4, seen by Reuters, Wizz mentioned its Head of Flight Operations Darwin Triggs was stepping down from his position after an investigation into “how the COVID-19 associated redundancies had been decided and carried out” final yr.
The Budapest-based airline introduced plans to chop 1,000 jobs, or 20% of its workforce, in April 2020, weeks after a journey shutdown in Europe brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Within the letter, the airline mentioned an unbiased overview of its dealing with of the redundancies discovered no indication it had acted unlawfully however “some components might have been taken under consideration that had been inconsistent with Wizz Air’s tradition of open and trustworthy communication and its deal with worker alternative.”
The letter got here after an audio recording circulated amongst pilots purportedly of a digital assembly in April 2020 at which a Wizz supervisor advised his workers to attract up goal lists because the airline pursued 250 redundancies amongst pilots and trainees.
“We begin off with the dangerous apples, so anybody who has prompted you grief on a routine foundation,” the supervisor is heard saying within the recording, earlier than suggesting “extreme illness” or declining to work on days off amongst causes for termination.
Requested to touch upon the letter and the recording, a Wizz spokesman mentioned in an emailed assertion to Reuters: “It’s clear that some language was used on an inner name that didn’t mirror the method being undertaken nor the values of the enterprise and that could be a matter of remorse.”
The spokesman declined to touch upon whether or not it was Triggs’ voice on the recording or whether or not he was nonetheless with the corporate. Reuters was unable to achieve Triggs for remark or to find out whether or not he was talking within the recording.
Regardless of intense stress to slash prices and preserve money, airways must preserve sufficient planes and workers prepared for a post-pandemic restoration and future demand development.
Three months after the purported assembly, Wizz introduced a “Cabin Crew to Captain” programme to retrain flight attendants as pilots.
Whereas conventional airways have obtained state help all through the COVID-19 journey disaster, finances carriers’ cost-cutting agility has positioned them to achieve floor in a restoration prone to be led by short-haul leisure journey.
Within the recording, the supervisor additionally means that pilots employed through a Dutch outsourcing agency needs to be left largely untouched.
“They’re simple to handle as a result of we will allow them to go at any time. They solely have 24 days of (go away) they usually’re extremely low-cost,” the supervisor says, earlier than concluding: “Sharpen your pencils and let’s have a look at what you’ll be able to provide you with.”
(Reporting by Laurence Frost; Enhancing by Nick Tattersall)
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