PAL: Pilots who'll be transferred to AirPhil will get same pay

The management of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) on Wednesday said its pilots who will be transferred to sister company AirPhil Express will receive the same salary, contradicting the affected pilots' claim. Pilot Henry Claveria, who resigned from PAL in April, said in a radio dzMM interview that he was forced to leave the airlines after being declared a “redundant" employee and learning that he will only receive P30,000 monthly if ever he is transferred to AirPhil. But in a separate radio interview, PAL president Jaime Bautista assured pilots who will be flying AirPhil planes that they would get the same salary as their counterparts in PAL. “Ang nasa AirPhil, ang suweldo po nila ay pareho sa mga suweldo ng mga nasa Philippine Airlines," Bautista said. “Naka-assign lang po sila sa AirPhil pero pareho lang po sila ng suweldo." (AirPhil pilots receive the same salary as their counterparts in PAL. They are only assigned to AirPhil.) However, it was not immediately clear if apart from the same salary, transferred pilots will also get the same benefits as those who are in PAL. PAL was forced to cancel and reschedule some of its domestic flights after 25 pilots, citing various reasons like salary and unjust treatment, resigned without giving prior notice. The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) on Wednesday said the issue with PAL and its pilots may result to a "crisis" if not immediately resolved. [See video below.]

No word from pilots Bautista said he has not received any word from the 25 pilots about their plans to return to PAL once their issues with the company are settled. “Wala pa po kaming natatanggap na assurance na babalik ang 25 pilots (They haven’t assured us that they would return to us once the issues are settled)," he said. He said he has received information that the 25 pilots have already been accepted to other airlines and are already undergoing training. Asked if the airline will push through with its earlier statement to press charges against the 25 pilots, Bautista said: “Gagawin po namin ang dapat gawin ng PAL (PAL will do what it has to do)." He said mass resignation of pilots is not new to them, and that past cases ended up in amicable settlements with the pilots paying them. “Sa totoo lang po, in the past, may dinemanda na kaming piloto na hindi nag-comply at umalis. And we had amicable settlements and binayaran nila ang nagastos ng PAL sa kanila," he said. (We had sued pilots in the past. There were amicable settlements where they reimbursed us for what we had spent for them.) “So hindi po ito first time na nangyari [So this is not the first time that we are faced with this problem]," he added. Unlike other local airlines like the Gokongwei-owned Cebu Pacific, the Lucio Tan-owned PAL doesn’t have a labor union group for its pilots. Bautista said their employees were not allowed to form union groups ever since the 1998 PAL employee strike that crippled the flag carrier's operations. - KBK, GMANews.TV