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Airlines seek NCAA, IATA’s help over crew poaching

Some airlines have approached the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for protection over high level poaching of pilots and engineers. Aside that, the carriers are doing soul searching over high incidents of pilots cross-carpeting from one airline to another, a situation that has been attributed to poor remuneration and appalling condition of service by offering to pay more to retain their high skilled workers.
The operators are seeking assistance from NCAA to ensure that the introduction of bond with their pilots and engineers who wants to leave is respected.
The Managing Director of Bristow Helicopters (Nigeria), Capt. Akin Oni, in an interview with woleshadare.net said: “We used to be very worried about poaching. In fact, we approached the NCAA for assistance, but then, it was poaching from our competitors. We also did some soul searching as to why do we spend $250,000 training a pilot and we allow them to go? We introduced something like bonding.”
He said noted that in the Nigerian aviation industry, airlines rarely train pilots and engineers, the two critical professionals needed to run the business, because of the enormous funds needed to do so. So, new operators and those who are witnessing shortage of these two professionals go for established and trained ones to fill the gaps.
This trend has robbed the country of qualified hands while many roam the streets because of lack of on the job training as they are not offered the opportunity.
The economic recession has also made training of pilots and engineers to take the back seat. Experts said it cost over $250,000 to train a pilot and little lesser for an aircraft engineer.
Spokesman for NCAA, Sam Adurogboye, said there is no law that stops poaching, saying what they do is ensure that the employee is properly employed.
He said aside that, they also wade in to ensure the resolution of labour dispute so as not to impact on safety, noting that poaching is not a new thing in aviation industry.
Adurogboye disclosed that an airline had, at the peak of operations even poached professionals from NCAA, people they spent so much amount of money to train until they had to step in to halt the process.
He said until that portion is included in the new civil aviation policy that government is fashioning, it would stand on nothing to implement, stressing that the airline operators under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) should wade in to stem the tide.
Aside the phenomenon in Africa, all over the globe, weaker airlines are complaining over the taking away of their assets by bigger airlines in the Middle East, Europe and Asia.
An aircraft engineer said under the condition of anonymity that although, the luring away of the management and flight-crew of another carrier is not a new phenomenon in the airline industry, it has been hurting the smaller, weaker airlines, particularly in the last couple of years.
And at the high end of the cycle where airlines in areas like the Middle East, China and India are adding aircraft faster than pilots can be trained to fly them, aircrew and other qualified staff have been leaving for better offers in larger numbers than ever.
The source said the issue took centre stage at an IATA forum when some of the “little guys” from Africa joined forces to criticise publicly the bigger players.
Smaller African carriers are not the only ones to have suffered as a result of poaching by the more aggressive large players, with many pointing the finger at the fast-growing Middle Eastern operators.
Carriers in some Asian and South American countries have also been losing staff as new-starts and the expanding established players have thrown attractive salaries at qualified staff.
When it was suggested at the IATA meeting that there should be a “code of conduct” to prevent poaching of staff from African carriers, the idea was effectively shot down as naïve.
In August this year, China disclosed that her airlines would need to hire 100 pilots a week to meet skyrocketing travel demand. Facing a shortage of candidates at home, carriers are dangling lucrative pay packages at foreigners with cockpit experience.
Giacomo Palombo, a former United Airlines pilot, said he was being bombarded every week with offers to fly Airbus A320s in China. Regional carrier Qingdao Airlines promised as much as $318,000 a year.
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