Sunwing : Czech Travel Service pilots pay in Canada ?

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Sorry Gilles, not meaning to pick on you but you never answered my question. How is the Travel service contract highly illegal? Sunwing has a contract with travel service. The travel service pilots have a contract with their company. Sunwing pays travel service, travel service pays their pilots what's in their contract. What am I missing?

Also I don't see anything in the paragraph you quoted that sunwings black and white violated.

A third party is not allowed to take a cut from the pay of TFW. I cannot go and hire a bunch of Mexicans to pick apples, sign a contact with farmers to rent the Mexicans out at $10/hour, pay the Mexicans $8/hr and pocket the difference. That is illegal.

IF (I wrote IF) Sunwing is paying Travel Service a certain amount for the use of the pilots and those same pilots are earning less than what Sunwing pays for them, it's the same as the example above. Are you happy with what I wrote or do you want me to Google the regs ?

[CD]

Although not a temporary foreign worker issue, the scenario you describe has been precisely what happens when the federal government hires temporary workers. They often issue work contracts through an agency, the agency takes their cut, then pays the worker. Often, the temporary worker will be doing the same job for less than the permanent worker in the next office. Sometimes, significantly less as indicated in the following CBC story:

Government temp work loses its lustre

So if there really are specific rules in place to protect the temporary foreign workers, that would be great. Too bad the same doesn't appear to apply with Canadian citizens...

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Although I heard from several distinct sources that some Czech pilots were earning as little as 1200 Euros a month, no one has come forward (to me anyway) with proof of this.

Any temporary foreign worker working as a pilot under an LMO issued by HRSDC and who knows that he is earning less than his Canadian counterparts should file a complaint to the Federal Labour Minister.

[dashx]

sign a contact with farmers to rent the Mexicans out at $10/hour, pay the Mexicans $8/hr and pocket the difference. That is illegal.

Welcome to heavy maintenance in Canada. Where (depending on the size of the project) you might have more contractors than employees working on a check. Where the contracting company (who probably doesn't have a contract with the airline/MRO/AMO. And the contractor certainly gets less per hour than the contracting company itself. Unless (of course) the contractor is independent (pays his own WSIB/insurance).

The difference here (of course) is that the contractors are Canadian (or have a right to work in Canada). And may or may not have experience (or an endorsement) on the type.

And BTW I take offense to you using the phrase "bunch of Mexicans".......perhaps " hire a group of Mexican workers" would have been more professional. And why did they have to be Mexican in the first place? They could have been Jamaican. And where else do apple pickers come from these days? Maybe I need to check that out.........

[Gino Under]

For sake of discussion, is it reasonable to spend the dollar amounts required to train 60 or more specialized workers for temporary positions?
Yes it is. Practically every business in Canada does. Why would you infer Sunwing or Canjet are exceptions? Dollar amounts?

Don't know the real costs of training 737NG crews but often hear the figure 30K tossed around... If the figure is close and the actual number is 60 its a 1.8 million dollar training cost to operate something for a short period of time. Would a company recover the 1.8 millon in that defined period of time?
Yeah, they would actually. And in about a month of flying. Here's my best guess without looking at their financial report.
1 pairing - YYZ-FLL $400.00 return airfare multiplied by 189 seats = $75,600.00
As an average income from similar flights over 100 trips at $75,600 = $7,560,000.00
Since they operate more than 100 flights a year to train 60 pilots at a cost of $35,000 per pilot = $2,100,000
1000 flights in the year should generate roughly $75,600,000.00 and these are low ball estimates.
Quite easy and reasonable to say they got it covered.

Would they make any profit operating that service if they added 1.8 millon in operating cost?
Yes, they still would.
What if fuel goes up .30 cents a litre? Are they likely to pay?
What if insurance premiums go up? Will they cancel flights?
What if there's an increase in aircraft parts prices?
Ground handling and services?
You're implying it's okay to pay the associated operating costs except one. Pilot training.
Well, I for one ain't buying your rationale or reason.

Who benefits from training 60 people for short term work?
I'd say Canadian aviation as a whole would benefit by ensuring our pilots acquire invaluable experience today by filling these kinds of pilot positions at Canadian air lines when they're available to help ensure we have a Canadian air line industry in our future. If we endorse this Sunwing behaviour today we can expect to see foreign carriers infiltrate the Canadian airline market and operate from foreign bases. I won't support that either if it were to happen.

Clearly not the company and it's shareholders.
You should note that Sunwing is a private company. Therefore, it has NO shareholders. Only a partner, TUI.

I submit the company could probably make an argument that it wasn't reasonable to train Canadians or permanent residences to meet their labour needs.
Reality? The company can tell as many little porkies as they'd like in front of as many government organizations as they like and they'd likely be believed by everyone of them.
Truth is they're still trying to smoke those little porkies by everyone and most of us aren't buying it.

What role does the average Canadian pilot wish to play in the stature, quality of life and professionalism that should be part and parcel of the piloting profession in Canada?
Do we all want the profession to degenerate to the level of a Ryanair where the pilot pays for a type rating before an interview is granted. Pays for his uniform. Pays for his recurrent training. Turning this so-called profession into an even bigger joke than it already is?
Maybe it's later than we think.

The Sunwing Chairman, in a year end interview dated December 14, 2012 made some interesting remarks that should help some numbers people get their heads around training costs.

http://www.travelhotnews.com/reportages ... e_no=41584

The Sunwing Group uses its status as a private company to keep from having its financial results published.

- Revenue of $1.3 billion
- Profits before taxes of $68.1 million
- 2,000 employees
- 1.4 million Canada passengers
- 6,000 hotel rooms
- 35 per cent Canadian market share
source:TRAVELhotNews


Gino Under

[SplitS]

Merci Gilles pour ton courage et determination... Tu est tres respectez chez AC pour tes efforts...

[dashx]

5% profit.

Before taxes.

I wonder what the Sunwing Koolaid tastes like?

[OPEC6-Heavy]

I wonder what the Sunwing Koolaid tastes like?

Orange juice...

[ea306]

With a touch of foreign flavor that for some is yummy, others an acquired taste, and others repulsive. To each his own... lol

[devin24]

Hello There,

This is a message to the Czech pilots utilized by Prague put together Travel Service and working with respect to agreement to Sunwing Airlines as Boeing 737NG pilots. There are two gatherings of Czech Travel Service pilots in Canada. One bunch is in Canada flying Czech enrolled flying machine under a wet-rent understanding. This message isn't adressed to that gathering. The second gathering of pilots were admitted to Canada under the Foreign Temporary Workers Program to fly Canadian enlisted flying machine. This gathering needed to acquire a work license and needed to pass a Canadian test system ride. This message is routed to you.

There are steady bits of gossip in Canada about some of the Czech pilots being come up short on. Canadian guidelines necessitate that any Temporary Foreign Worker enlisted to work in Canada be paid compensation tantamount to those of their Canadian partners playing out a similar sort of work. We are talking here of base inlet. The sum earned in additional time or whatever you procure in routine set of expenses doesn't tally.

[SymbolA310]

There is TVS pilots in winter 2019/20, flying C-REG with License Validation and Work Permit for Sunwing ??

[GoHomeLeg]

There is TVS pilots in winter 2019/20, flying C-REG with License Validation and Work Permit for Sunwing ??

No. That ended a while ago. They on fly Czech registered aircraft. C-reg TVS aircraft are flown by Sunwing pilots only on a dry lease agreement.

[plausiblyannonymous]

There is TVS pilots in winter 2019/20, flying C-REG with License Validation and Work Permit for Sunwing ??

No. That ended a while ago. They on fly Czech registered aircraft. C-reg TVS aircraft are flown by Sunwing pilots only on a dry lease agreement.

Are those dry-lease aircraft still being flown in by TVS to get fixed by Sunwing? Last I heard, they sent aircraft over with over 100 seats that needed fixing... one of the aircraft had an engine failure along the way and was delivered a month late.

[GoHomeLeg]

There is TVS pilots in winter 2019/20, flying C-REG with License Validation and Work Permit for Sunwing ??

No. That ended a while ago. They on fly Czech registered aircraft. C-reg TVS aircraft are flown by Sunwing pilots only on a dry lease agreement.

Are those dry-lease aircraft still being flown in by TVS to get fixed by Sunwing? Last I heard, they sent aircraft over with over 100 seats that needed fixing... one of the aircraft had an engine failure along the way and was delivered a month late.

I think I remember an engineer sharing that story with me last winter. SWG told them to get that garbage out here and send another one. Not in those exact words. SWG sent it back I heard.

[daedalusx]

To understand TVS corporate safety culture, one should look at the QS-1125 incident this summer.