Summary
- Italy-based Wizz Air Malta pilots and flight attendants plan a four-hour strike on May 28.
- The union’s demands include a collective labor agreement (CLA) and fairer working conditions.
- Wizz Air has had a long history of conflicts with employees who have attempted to unionize, including lawsuits in Romania.
With a planned four-hour strike action, Italy-based Wizz Air pilots, represented by the Italian Transport Federation-Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions (Federazione Italiana Trasporti-Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, FIT-CISL) union, are demanding better working conditions from the low-cost carrier.
Affecting Wizz Air’s Italian operations
According to strike information provided by the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport (Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti, MIT), the crews employed by Wizz Air Malta will strike on May 28, 2024. The four-hour strike action will affect all flights departing Italy between 13:00 and 17:00 local time (UTC +2).
In a notice to the Italian Ministry of Labor and Social Policies (Ministero del lavoro e delle politiche sociali, MLPS), as well as Wizz Air Malta, FIT-CISL informed that all crew members employed by the low-cost carrier’s Maltese subsidiary would go on the four-hour strike.
Photo: Airbus
Data from the aviation analytics company Cirium showed that in May, Wizz Air Malta has scheduled departures from 23 airports in Italy, totaling 758 weekly departures during the month. The top three busiest airports are Rome Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino Airport (FCO, 243 weekly departures), Milan Malpensa Airport (MXP, 103 weekly departures), and Milan Bergamo Orio al Serio International Airport (BGY, 71 weekly departures).
The union has pointed out four conflict areas with Wizz Air: the violation of laws regulating occupational health and safety, equal opportunities between men and women, information and consultation of employees, and the protection and support of maternity and paternity.
FIT-CISL pointed out that it requested an urgent meeting with Wizz Air on March 28 to resolve the issues. However, the meeting did not occur, and the union continued to escalate the issue. While the two sides eventually met, the follow-up meeting did not resolve their issues.
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Recognizing the right to join a union
Meanwhile, Diarmuid O’Conghaile, the managing director of Wizz Air Malta, addressed the company’s employees about the strike. He started his message, which Simple Flying saw, by saying that the airline emerged from the pandemic growing more strongly than any other airline in Europe. Wizz Air has provided the following statement to Simple Flying:
“Wizz Air is challenging the legality of the announced strike, therefore cannot comment on legal matters nor on its internal communications with its employees.”
Photo: Dizfoto | Shutterstock
O’Conghaile continued that while the airline has encountered operational issues, it has fixed these problems, making Wizz Air one of the best-performing airlines in the continent, adding that it has managed to do so with the help of its crew members.
“At Wizz, we recognize your right to join a trade union. We also recognize your right not to join any union but to pursue, instead, a genuine dialogue with the management of the airline. This has proven to work well over the last 20 years, in which we had no union involvement but maintained open dialogue with you.”
The Irish executive noted that the airline was not against unions but that Wizz Air believed dealing directly with the employees’ issues would be the better choice. The managing director added that this would deliver better results for the crew. O’Conghaile stated that pilots could turn up at their respective bases and raise the issue directly with the airline’s C-level executives, noting that this does not happen at other airlines.
O’Conghaile admitted that Wizz Air might not get everything right the first time, adding that the carrier listens to its people and tries to understand the problems that the employees face. According to the executive, that was how the airline plans to deliver a solution that works for both sides.
“A strike is unnecessary and will not benefit anyone. For the sake of our passengers, in order that we can deliver on our service promise to them, in order that we do not disrupt their lives, we urge you not to participate in any strike.”
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Demands for a collective labor agreement
In a FIT-CISL memo sent to its employees, which was seen by Simple Flying, the union detailed that all pilots and flight attendants could attend the strike, and union membership was not mandatory. However, FIT-CISL emphasized that the participants of the labor action need to respect the rest days, shifts, minimum transit, and rest times, strictly adhering to their contracts.
“Any colleagues experiencing any form of pressure and/or intimidation from company representatives are requested to report it promptly to the Union Organization that called the strike, noting: the name of the person, the time of the event, and any witnesses.”
In a draft statement, which was seen by Simple Flying, the union detailed the problems that they want to raise with Wizz Air. Firstly, FIT-CISL members demanded a collective labor agreement (CLA) to ensure their rights and protections for all employees. According to the union, the airline can change the salary components on a whim and without negotiating with the employees.
Photo: Antonello Marangi | Shutterstock
The union also noted that despite the airline’s success – with the carrier ending FY2024 with a net profit of €365.9 million ($397 million) – the crew members’ salaries have remained stagnant. As a result, the union’s members demand that the airline align the pay with inflation.
O’Conghaile said that Wizz Air would pay an all-employee bonus to all in July even if the company had not reached its financial goals. The airline’s FY2024 report detailed that its labor costs increased by 35.8% year-on-year (YoY), reflecting the airline hiring more people (16.4% YoY), higher aircraft utilization, and cost-of-living adjustments to salaries YoY.
Photo: Ceri Breeze | Shutterstock
According to FIT-CISL, the airline’s current policies do not provide sufficient guarantees for pregnant women. As a result, the labor collective has demanded that Wizz Air improve maternity leave policies, which include job protection and the introduction of specific support measures for mothers returning to work.
Other issues include roster stability, access to industry pension funds, and access to category-specific insurance, ensuring the long-term financial stability and emotional well-being of pilots and flight attendants. FIT-CISL concluded that its goal is to ensure fairer, more dignified, and safer working conditions for Wizz Air Malta’s employees.
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Pay dispute
In the same message, O’Conghaile stated that Wizz Air’s ultra-low-cost carrier business model has allowed, among other things, to deliver pay improvements, including the recent salary changes in Italy. However, the union contended that the new salary package would actually penalize its employees.
FIT-CISL issued a statement on April 4, detailing its disappointment that the airline decided to implement the new salary package, significantly degrading the social security part of the flight crews’ contracts. According to the union, while it recognized the amount of investment that Wizz Air has made in Italy, the growth has to go hand in hand with better working conditions for its employees, including pilots and flight attendants.
Photo: Wizz Air
In a memo that FIT-CISL sent to its members shortly after the changes were announced, which Simple Flying saw, the union blasted the airline for refusing to collaborate, adding that its management had declined to address the problems raised by employees.
“Despite already being in a worse situation than other low-cost airlines operating in Italy, our salaries remain significantly lower than those of our colleagues based in Romania. The company has incorrectly reduced the cost for each pilot […].”
The union pointed out that while the net pay has grown slightly, the reduced pension contributions have resulted in an overall loss of earnings. FIT-CISL highlighted that its members were now more exposed to potential disputes, especially if employees failed to pay their income tax on time.
As such, the labor collective said it was wrong to expose its employees without the protections of a CLA and official guarantees of assistance during potential disputes. FIT-CISL pointed out that Wizz Air only mentioned offering legal support ambiguously.
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Ignoring workers’ rights
In a statement to Simple Flying, Mircea Constantin, the Secretary General of FPU Romania, said that employees’ concerns that were apparent in Eastern Europe have now reached the airline’s Italian colleagues with the latest labor dispute.
“[Wizz Air Malta employees – ed. note] also discovered how Wizz Air ignores workers’ rights and even local laws in Western Europe. Strikes, as disruptive as they can be, only happen when employees feel unsafe and disrespected. We support all Wizz Air staff fighting for decent working conditions.”
FPU Romania was founded by the Denmark-based Flight Personnel Union (Flyvebranchen Personale Union, FPU) in 2020. According to Constantin, the union, an official branch of FPU, was established to help Eastern Europe-based crews unionize, guarantee fair working conditions, and preserve a culture of flight safety within airlines operating from the region.
Photo: Tupungato | Shutterstock
In April 2021, FPU Romania announced that the Romanian courts mandated Wizz Air to rehire four pilots and ten flight attendants, which it fired in April 2020. Then, the carrier argued that it did so due to the pandemic, yet the union said that the staff were dismissed illegally.
In a follow-up case, some of the illegally dismissed Italian pilots working at Wizz Air’s Romanian bases filed a complaint with the Romanian National Council for Combating Discrimination (Consiliul Național pentru Combaterea Discriminării, CNCD). The CNCD concluded that the low-cost carrier did not establish transparent criteria when selecting the pilots who were about to be let go from their jobs.
Concerned pilots in the United States
In a statement on December 15, 2020, FPU Romania said that in 2014, Wizz Air fired 19 employees after they had set up a union. In 2015, the CNCD concluded that the dismissals were illegal and discriminatory, with the council concluding that officially communicating against the establishment of a union and terminating contracts of employees who joined the union was unjust.
Photo: Wizz Air
When Wizz Air applied for an Economic Authority for Initial Foreign Air Carrier permit in the US in January 2022, the Department of Transportation (DOT) rejected the airline’s application. The Department cited the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) statement, which said it could not determine whether Wizz Air’s safety oversight was enough to grant the application to the Hungarian low-cost carrier.
However, several US-based unions, including the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), International Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), Allied Pilots Association (APA), Independent Pilots Association (IPA), Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA), and the Transportation Trades Department AFL-CIO (TTD) expressed concerns about the application and Wizz Air itself.
Photo: Cristi Croitoru | Shutterstock
ALPA began its filing by alleging that Wizz Air prided itself on a zero-tolerance policy of unions, including public assaults, retaliatory terminations, and refusals to comply with court orders to reinstate illegally fired employees.
“It targets for dismissal ‘bad apples’ who refuse to fly overtime, or when sick, or on their days off. Its ‘Wizz culture‘ – the opposite of a safety culture – has sown fear in the pilot ranks, giving rise to concerns among European pilots for flight safety.”
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Investors’ concerns
In December 2021, a group of investors expressed concerns about Wizz Air’s treatment of its employees, especially the right to form unions. One of the investors, AkademikerPension, a Denmark-based pension fund, eventually pulled its investment from the low-cost carrier listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Photo: Tom Boon | Simple Flying
In a statement issued in February 2022, AkademikerPension explained that investigations have concluded that Wizz Air’s management has repeatedly refused to recognize unions in Romania, Ukraine, Norway, and Italy.
The pension fund added that while the airline met with investors, it declined to change its view towards unions. As a result, AkademikerPension sold the airline’s shares worth up to DKK22 million ($3.1 million).
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