Adria staff from Slovenia to be replaced by Adria staff from Kosovo
The Association of Adria Airways Cabin Crew has announced that the company is hiring staff from Kosovo, while planning to fire more than 20% of its existing cabin staff in Slovenia. As outlined in the company’s restructuring plan, some 22% of Adria’s workforce will lose their jobs, most of them being cabin crew. The Association argues that they will be replaced by crew from Kosovo. The staff cuts will coincide with destination network reductions which are to be announced soon. While it is now being speculated that some routes from the airline’s Priština base will also be cut, none of the staff from Kosovo will lose their jobs, instead, more are being hired. In a letter addressed to the media, the Association said that cabin crew hired in Priština do not know Slovenian but will operate on flights out of Ljubljana. Furthermore, they claim that as foreigners, crew from Kosovo will not be subject to the terms of the new collective agreement nor the Employment Act which could lead to staff exploitation, thus compromising cabin safety. The Association also asks whether tax payer’s money, to be used for a 50 million Euro bailout, will be spent on hiring foreign nationals while redundancy payments will be offered to Slovenian staff.Adria Airways opened its base in Priština last summer with flights to several German cities. This summer it extended its offer out of Priština. However, the airline hasn’t recorded good results on most of its routes from Priština as it faces staunch competition from several low cost airlines. Adria cabin crew representatives have requested a meeting with officials from the Slovenian Transport Ministry. After being initially turned down, the Ministry has now invited cabin crew representatives for talks.
Hiring foreign cabin crew to replace in-house employees is not uncommon practice in the aviation industry. Just last month Australian low cost airline Jetstar came under fire after it was revealed it hired crew from Thailand to operate flights within Australia, working double the hours and half the pay. The scandal led an Australian senator to propose a bill to ban foreign based cabin crew to serve on Australian domestic flights. Similarly, several US airlines have come under fire for replacing American cabin crew with those from India.
there will be lots of deleted comments at the end of the day.
ReplyDeletehowever, not good this, Adria
It is good for Adria, because of the lower costs. Greetings from Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteA very smart yet stupid move made by Adria.
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Adria is a Company who wants enter in a market from a forgein state! so they have also hire forgein people from this state...In the normal production-industy (automotive, food and other) is this normal...but not for the air(plan)Industry?!?! i dont see any reason why not!
ReplyDelete^ It is not normal, as these workers from Pristina will be based in Slovenia and not in Pristina.
ReplyDeleteif they keep the routes PRN to LJU,MUC and FRA I don t why they shouldn t employ Kosovo nationals.
ReplyDeleteCarriers like LX or LH have as well Indian, Japanese and Chinese staff enroute to India,Japan and China.
What I can see from the JP system, at least MUC,FRA flights out of FRA are doing well. At least they did during the past 5 months. Still that doesn t means anything. Adria has also good loads to LGW,CDG,SVO and IST and still faces losses on these routes.
It s all a question of the how much will be employeed and the sure instinct the management will show in this delicate decision.
In Emirates majority of the crew does not speak Arabic
ReplyDelete@ Batman
ReplyDeleteThat is because the company has a much broader destination network and therefore need people from other nations to satisfy the passangers needs. Airlines such as Qantas, Singapore etc are all the same.
Kosovo employees are cheaper which is also OK for me.
ReplyDeleteWhich nationality are cabin staff in easyJet, Ryanair, Wizzair...?
ReplyDeleteThe other day, I flew Continental on a domestic flight and the flight attendant could barely speak English. She sounded like from Haiti. I am not against hiring foreigners but many airlines as well other big corporations are abusing this, paying them minimum wage, forcing them working twice as more hours and no benefits whatsoever. The sad thing is that our government doesn't do anything about it. The airline and corporate lobbyists use their money to buy politicians and instead tell them what they have to do.
ReplyDeleteI fly Continental (I guess United now) and have never run into that. I guess times are changing. I am quite impressed that this post has been up 6 hours and no crazy comments that need to be deleted.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line is that passengers want cheap flights and the airlines want a profit. So they are finding ways to do both, but we have to realize that this outsourcing to the cheapest dollar leads to a race to the bottom. Domestic workers are laid off, get desperate, start working for less money, then foreign workers start accepting less money to keep jobs, and the cycle repeats.
That shouldn*t be a problem for a private airline ,but Adria is public owned ..so when Slovenians pay taxes they want to get something back.
ReplyDeleteIf not money then jobs .
Unfortunately this practice is common everywhere today in the world.
If a company makes profit that profit goes into pockets of the private owners.
If that same company makes losses
that losses have to pay tax payers.
20% may not be much,but that is only the beginning..
It will end up with 80 %in the next five years.
Also common practice in a lot of companies today..
That all also has political implications.
Slovenia risked a war to get rid of Yugoslavia ..a main argument was that Slovenians were financially exploited by other republics.
Now Slovenian taxpayers spend their money on the Albanian project Kosovo.
Slovenia a lousy province of Kosovo
ReplyDeleteI love how cabin staff everywhere bring cabin safety into the argument. I get it, they take the safety courses regularly, but really how hard is it. 99.99% of the time their activities are identical to waiters/waitresses, with only difference being the altitude.
ReplyDeleteCrew from Kosovo will do just as good of a job as the one from Slovenia.
The days of cabin crew glory are long gone.
Hey a waitress is expected to know basic CPR to keep you from dying if you choke.
ReplyDeletethis adria should close down. new company with ownership of all ex yu airliners should go for YU SAS airlines!!!
ReplyDeleteNow Slovenian passengers will have to learn Albanian to understand the cabin crew of their
ReplyDelete"national airline" .
I know some Slovenians who are working as waiters/waitresses in Austria although they have a degree from university .
ReplyDeleteAlthough so many well educated young people in Slovenia dont get a job ..
our national airline offers jobs to Albanians..
Everyone saying that should not be a problem are right IN CASE THE AIRLINE IS PRIVATE..
but Adria and its employees wages are paid by tax payers !
So stop subsidizing that airline !
Privatize Adria or let it go bancrupt !
When is Air France going to announce the schedule for flights to BEG,ZAG,and LJU?
ReplyDeletethanks
When I flew Jetstar from Melbourne to Tokyo, no crew member on board was an Aussie, all were Thais...
ReplyDeleteDoubt that Air France will implement any changes to its current flight schedule, at least to Belgrade. It has been operated like this for years.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why not.
ReplyDeleteThis is normal. If they can get it cheaper (especially at a time of financial crisis), why not.
We're not talking about tea and cookies here, not life and death.
Air France is flying to LJU :) by Regional! :)
ReplyDeleteCPR !? Big deal! I bet that half the passengers on the plane can perform CPR. I'd love to see some stats on how many times they actually performed CPR or anything outside regular hospitality activities.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there are quite a few taxi drivers with university degrees, some even with Master or PhD. That is sad, but not the topic for aviation blog.
We should not only replace the cabin crew with Albanians but also the pilots,the managers of Adria and the members of the government!
ReplyDeleteObviously the Slovenians are not able to run their own country.
Hmmm...maybe we also should move the capital from ljubljana to prishtina.
If the cabin crew is cheaper then only their employer profits . but me as a passenger ?
ReplyDeletei will have to pay the same price !
Nobody can tell me the tickets will become cheaper !
To say a cabin crew member is the same as a waiter/waitress is either
ignorant or stupid.
waiters/waitresses are earning most of their income by tips or
trinkgeld...what a shit !
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteInstead of paying cabin crew like waiters they should waiters pay as cabin crew !
ReplyDeleteNo , they have to work twice as much for half of the money...
Maybe we should re-introduce slavery for the sake of the customers and the economy ?!
What everyone forgets is that people who earn more money also spend more money !
BTW...in general being a waiter is a tough job ..working hours of minimum 10 hours also the weekends
..you people dont know what it means to be a waiter..
Hey Adria crew - what goes around comes around.
ReplyDeleteWell governments aren't interested in jobs and peoples good anymore we should all know that here in australia our goverment have percentage of ownerships in many different business, Airlines, TELECOMMUNICATION ETC MOST OF WHICH HAVE CALL centres in india etc obviously shares are minority and can be overuled but when they did have control before privatisation they could have had a contract stating with the sale no jobs would be exported oversea's which doesnt happen. not suprised by this its western influence
ReplyDeleteBet the people now wish Slovenia had not recognised Kosovos independence.
ReplyDelete