TALLINN - Commercial pilots will start looking beyond the Baltic horizon for jobs if the country's leading airline, Estonian Air, does not consider raising salaries, a representative from the local pilot trade union has said this week.
Rauno Menning, chairman of the Commercial Pilots Trade Union, says that his colleagues are simply unsatisfied with the country's salary/workload ratio. "We are neither planning a recruiting campaign nor intermediating pilots to work abroad. We have been studying the situation in other countries for quite a while now. The very last stimulus was that airBaltic pilot salaries went up," says Menning, who is also a Boeing-737 pilot with Estonian Air.
Latvia's airline airBaltic reportedly raised its pilots' wages by about 30 percent in January, providing them with an enviable monthly salary of about 3,200 euros.
According to Menning, the pay for Estonian commercial airline pilots needs to be updated "in accordance with the EU market supply and demand pattern." He suggested that the salary level recently achieved in Latvia would be acceptable in Estonia, as airBaltic pilots currently earn more than their northern counterparts.
The trade union is expecting to begin talks with Estonian Air. Company representatives have remained silent about the possible wage raise, noting only that Scandinavian pilots earn three to four times the national average while Estonian Air pilots receive five to six times the average.
The Estonian Commercial Pilots Trade Union, says Menning, has 43 members, all of whom work for Estonian Air. The union's average net monthly salary stands at 33,000 kroons (2,100 euros), but it wants to expand and incorporate pilots working for smaller companies.
Menning adds that there are 50 pilots working for Estonian Air, and 10 to 20 pilots employed by smaller branches.
While a massive exodus of Estonian pilots abroad is unlikely, there have been individual cases of pilots leaving for better work conditions, says the chairman.
"Some of the pilots from [small Estonian airline] Avies [that serves the regular connection between the island of Saaremaa and the mainland] have gone to Sweden," he adds.
Menning and other Estonian pilots visited an information seminar arranged by Ryanair for Latvian pilots in Riga last week where he met Lithuanian colleagues.
"Ryanair and easyJet are trend-setters. Pilots there work at the maximum allowed by the law and get adequate payment," explains Menning.
