Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

Se­nior Re­porter

bavi­ta.gopaulchan@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day gave Caribbean Air­lines the go-ahead to ac­cept the T&T Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion’s (TTAL­PA) re­quest for a four per cent salary in­crease.

The four per cent in­crease will cov­er two col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods—Sep­tem­ber 2015-Au­gust 2020 and Sep­tem­ber 2020-Au­gust 2023.

The an­nounce­ment was made in a re­lease last evening, hours af­ter Im­bert had is­sued a pre­vi­ous me­dia re­lease de­tail­ing the sit­u­a­tion with the ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween CAL and TTAL­PA and promis­ing he would pro­vide sup­port to CAL so the dis­pute could be set­tled.

That ear­li­er re­lease al­so came af­ter TTAL­PA staged yet an­oth­er silent protest out­side Im­bert’s Port-of-Spain of­fices.

In a state­ment in re­sponse to the protest, Im­bert ac­knowl­edged that de­spite air trans­port be­ing des­ig­nat­ed an es­sen­tial ser­vice, pi­lots had voiced their con­cerns over their com­pen­sa­tion by way of the demon­stra­tion. He not­ed that an in­junc­tion is­sued by the In­dus­tri­al Court in Au­gust 2023 pro­hibits TTAL­PA from en­gag­ing in in­dus­tri­al ac­tion and that he ex­pect­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion and its mem­bers to com­ply.

Im­bert reaf­firmed Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to “fair, eq­ui­table and rea­son­able col­lec­tive agree­ments in the best in­ter­est of all stake­hold­ers, while al­so con­sid­er­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly Caribbean Air­lines’ cur­rent fi­nan­cial con­di­tion.”

“... it is nec­es­sary to re­mind TTAL­PA, the pi­lots, and the pub­lic at large, that while CAL may be head­ing for an op­er­a­tional prof­it, which is com­mend­able, it is a fact that over the last nine years, the Min­istry of Fi­nance has tak­en over CAL’s debts and debt ser­vic­ing oblig­a­tions. The min­istry, there­fore, cov­ers a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of CAL’s an­nu­al ex­pens­es,” Im­bert said.

“In the last four years in par­tic­u­lar, the Min­istry of Fi­nance has pro­vid­ed the air­line with bil­lions of dol­lars in fi­nan­cial sup­port in the af­ter­math of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Fur­ther, the Min­istry of Fi­nance con­tin­ues to sub­sidise the air­line to the tune of hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars per year.”

Im­bert not­ed that just two months ago, the min­istry paid for a spare en­gine for CAL’s Max-8 fleet, which cost US$18 mil­lion (TT$122 mil­lion) and was an un­bud­get­ed ex­pen­di­ture. He said the min­istry had to scram­ble to source the fund­ing but did so be­cause of CAL’s im­por­tance to the coun­try.

Re­gard­ing the wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, Im­bert said CAL had ad­vised that, to date, the air­line and TTAL­PA had agreed on and closed off 50 non-cost-re­lat­ed mat­ters.

“It is note­wor­thy that CAL pi­lots, in­clud­ing start­ing and se­nior mem­bers, have re­ceived con­sis­tent in­creas­es in com­pen­sa­tion over the years. CAL has ad­vised the min­is­ter that pi­lots are com­pen­sat­ed through com­pet­i­tive salaries, al­lowances, and per diem rates that place them among the high­est-earn­ing pro­fes­sion­als in the re­gion,” Im­bert said.

“Since 2022, the air­line has on­board­ed 90 pi­lots (54 re­calls, eight re­hires on fixed-term con­tracts not at­tain­ing the age of 65, and 28 new hires, in­clud­ing in­ter­nal can­di­dates). Over­all, CAL has ad­vised that pi­lot salaries ac­count for thir­ty-three per cent (33 per cent) of the air­line’s pay­roll costs, while the pi­lot body com­pris­es thir­teen per cent (13 per cent) of the to­tal work­force.”

He pro­vid­ed the fol­low­ing break­down of pi­lots’ salaries:

• Start­ing Pi­lot An­nu­al Salary: TT$273,819 (TT$22,818 per month)

• Se­nior Pi­lot An­nu­al Salary: TTD 1,137,123 (TT$94,760 per month)

• Av­er­age Month­ly Al­lowances and Per Diem, paid in ad­di­tion to Salary: US$6,300 or TT$42,714 per month Av­er­age per cent In­crease in Pi­lot Salaries (2015-Present): The av­er­age in­crease be­tween 2015 and 2024 would be 23.4 per cent from a salary in 2015 to 2024.

Im­bert em­pha­sised that CAL’s pi­lot com­pen­sa­tion was com­pet­i­tive and con­tributes to a low at­tri­tion rate. How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted there were com­plex is­sues hin­der­ing progress, in­clud­ing a TTAL­PA re­quest for sev­er­ance and dam­ages from con­tract pi­lots over 60 years of age, who, are not will­ing to leave the com­pa­ny up­on reach­ing the age of 60, de­spite spe­cif­ic con­tract claus­es.

Dur­ing the ear­li­er protest out­side Im­bert’s of­fice, TTAL­PA trustee Kei­th Dowdy em­pha­sised that af­ter nine years, the pi­lots were will­ing to set­tle for four per cent, the same of­fer giv­en to pub­lic ser­vants by Gov­ern­ment.

The union ini­tial­ly re­ject­ed CAL’s 7.5 per cent wage in­crease of­fer.

TTAL­PA “grate­ful” Min­is­ter in­ter­vened

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of the of­fer by the Fi­nance Min­istry, TTAL­PA said it al­so “notes” the four per cent of­fer for the oth­er bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od - 2020 to 2023 and will con­sult with its mem­bers be­fore adopt­ing a po­si­tion on the of­fer.

The pi­lots’ protests start­ed this month with a silent demon­stra­tion at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, fol­lowed by the pi­lots de­liv­er­ing a let­ter to Im­bert.

The pi­lots are cur­rent­ly op­er­at­ing on an ex­pired nine-year col­lec­tive agree­ment and salary.