As its newest value chopping measure, Finnair is negotiating to attempt to substitute flight attendants based mostly in Finland with flight attendants based mostly in america and Thailand.
Finnair might rent USA-based flight attendants
Finnair has introduced that it’s beginning negotiations with its flight attendants based mostly in Finland, to debate plans to subcontract inflight service on extra routes. Particularly, by the top of 2023, the airline is hoping to have “native” flight attendants bases in each america and Thailand.
Finnair already has outsourced flight attendant bases in Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and Sweden. Finnair at the moment has 1,750 flight attendants based mostly in Finland, and the airline is hoping to cut back that quantity by 450 as a part of this outsourcing.
That is a part of Finnair’s efforts to revive profitability by decreasing unit prices and strengthening unit revenues. Finnair has not solely misplaced some huge cash because of a drop in demand ensuing from the pandemic, however the airline can also be horribly impacted by not with the ability to use Russian airspace.
The negotiations will begin on November 23, 2022, and are estimated to take no less than six weeks. Finnair is hoping to attain value financial savings with current crews by altering employment phrases. For cabin crew, Finnair has proposed modifications to crew utilization effectivity, layover resort guidelines, and extra per hour pay for lengthy haul flights, because the closure of Russian airspace has made flight instances to Asia significantly longer.
Finnair hasn’t had luck with cabin crew negotiations till now, which is why the airline is threatening to outsource extra crews.
Right here’s how Finnair CEO Topi Method describes these negotiations:
“Our goal continues to be to discover a financial savings resolution along with our cabin crew. We now want a real will from the negotiators to search out options that might enable us to proceed inflight service with our personal crew, and keep away from redundancies. Dialogue on various options is a vitally essential a part of the change negotiations course of.”
Can somebody assist me perceive this?
I’ve a number of ideas about Finnair’s plans to outsource extra flight attendant jobs.
Initially, on some degree I think about that is only a menace from administration, meant to get Finland-based cabin crew to make extra concessions. On the similar time, this isn’t precisely an empty menace, on condition that Finnair has been outsourcing flight attendants to different nations for years.
Moreover, I can’t assist however be shocked by how weak Finnair’s cabin crew union seemingly is. In the remainder of Europe, cabin crew appear to be very properly represented. In the meantime Finnair has been on a widespread foundation outsourcing flight attendant jobs for years (even pre-pandemic).
Lastly, whereas I can admire how there could be important value financial savings outsourcing these jobs to Thailand (the place labor prices are less expensive), are the financial savings when outsourcing to america really important? I think about on some degree it’s about additionally getting higher work guidelines.
Nevertheless, there’s a lack of effectivity when you have got a number of crew bases, particularly by way of having reserve staff readily available, and scheduling effectivity.
Backside line
Finnair is getting into negotiations with flight attendants, and desires to outsource extra flight attendant roles. The airline at the moment has 1,750 flight attendants based mostly in Finland, and the hope is to outsource 450 extra of these roles to america and Thailand.
Whereas the airline is admittedly in a tricky monetary spot, Finnair has used overseas crew bases for years, so this idea is nothing new.
What do you make of Finnair’s flight attendant outsourcing plans?
