Pilots, flight attendants, and aircraft mechanics employed at the national flag carrier Croatia Airlines could go on strike early in the tourist season, possibly affecting what looks to become a record-setting summer season.
The company’s unions are due to begin negotiating on a new collective agreement which should replace the last one, 17 months after it had expired. But the expected failure of the process would legally allow employees to go on strike, Vecernji List daily reported on Thursday.
The strike would be organised by the ORCA workers’ union which had already planned a strike in August 2017 only to postpone it after meeting with Transport Minister Oleg Butkovic.
Apart from the collective agreement, the unions at Croatia Airlines said they disapproved decisions made by the company’s management, as well as the government dragging its feet in selecting a new CEO. The pilots’ union (HSPP) sent a new letter to the media on Wednesday, after similar letters they had sent out in January and April, listing problems at the company and warning that the situation at the national airline is becoming more dire by the day.
VEZANE VIJESTI
The pilots’ union warned that employees were leaving in droves, that technical support services are understaffed, which led to Croatia Airlines cancelling flights and hastily leasing aircraft from other companies. They said that regular aircraft maintenance, normally scheduled to be done by end of March, would be at least 45 days late, due to bad scheduling and a lack of licensed aircraft mechanics, and added that it forced the company to lease 13 different aircraft for its scheduled routes in March and April alone, Vecernji List reported.
They said 68 mechanics had left the company since 2013 to work abroad, and that in the last six years, the number of pilots with open-ended contracts dropped by 44. On the other hand, the management led by interim CEO Jasmin Bajic claim the pilots’ criticism is related to the selection of the new permanent CEO, for which the pilots openly backed the former CEO of Zagreb Airport, Bosko Matkovic.
Croatia Airlines has been without a CEO since September 2016, when the contract of the last CEO Kresimir Kucko had expired. The company, which the government is trying to find a partner willing to invest some €33.7 million in, has recently posted a €11.4 million loss in Q1 2018. It has more than 900 employees and operates a fleet consisting of four Airbus A319s, two Airbus A320s and six Bombardier Q400 aircraft.
Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.