PAL plans to employ laid-off RI pilots
PAL plans to employ laid-off RI pilots
MANILA, Philippines (AP): Financially embattled Philippine Airlines (PAL) is planning to hire laid-off Indonesian pilots to replace Filipino pilots who went on strike and brought the airline close to collapse, an official said yesterday.
PAL has sent officials to Jakarta to screen hundreds of pilots laid off by at least four Indonesian carriers hurt by the rupiah's sharp fall, senior vice president Avelino Zapanta said.
The Indonesian carriers, which together laid off more than 1,000 pilots, include national airline Garuda Indonesia and Sempati Air. The latter closed June 1 because of huge financial losses.
Zapanta said PAL currently has 83 pilots, including some union members who have returned to work, but needs a total of 200 to handle its scaled down operations following the 18-day pilots' strike.
He said Indonesian pilots fly the same types of aircraft used by PAL, which would allow the airline to save on training costs and time.
The 625-member pilots' union went on strike June 5 to protest an airline plan to retire certain pilots who have reached 20 years of service or flown 20,000 hours, regardless of age.
The plan put 225 pilots in danger of forced retirement, the union says.
On Friday, PAL flight attendants and ground personnel threatened to join the work stoppage, which has pushed Asia's oldest airline to the brink of closure.
The ground workers' union filed a strike notice with the labor department accusing PAL of union busting and harassment. The flight attendants' union said it also plans a strike vote.
PAL chairman and business magnate Lucio Tan urged the two unions not to strike and pledged not to pursue sanctions against them if they agree to suspend the terms of existing collective bargaining agreements for five years. Both unions refused.
PAL filed a rehabilitation plan Friday with Manila's Securities and Exchange Commission, saying it is unable to meet payments on its loans, estimated at US$ 2 billion, because of drastically reduced cash flow.
The pilots' strike has cost the company more than 2 billion pesos ($50 million) in lost revenue, PAL says.
"PAL has sufficient assets to cover obligations but we want to prevent creditors from panicking and starting to haul away our assets," Zapanta said, adding the airline will pursue an orderly settlement of obligations.
As part of its rehabilitation plan, the airline says it will lay off 40 percent of its 13,000-member work force, dispose of 40 of its 54 planes, suspend more than two-thirds of its routes and sell some subsidiaries.
It said Thursday it will decide in three months whether it will shut down after seeing the results of the rehabilitation plan.
PAL says it lost 8 billion pesos ($202 million) in the fiscal year that ended March 31 - the biggest loss in its 57-year history.