The agency contract questions every new European low cost crew member should ask before signing, from someone who signed without asking
-
#1 Ex Thomas Cook, ex TUI, now ground ops at Manchester, and I have been on both sides of enough contracts to have opinions. I also watched Thomas Cook collapse from the inside with crew on three different contract types who were treated three different ways in the aftermath. So this is the list of questions I wish someone had made me ask at 22, aimed at the agency and fixed term contracts that a lot of European low cost crew start on.
Who is my employer
Not who is on the aircraft. Who is on the contract. If it is an agency (Crewlink, Workforce, a local recruitment company), the airline is your client, not your employer, and that matters for every other question here. Ask it plainly and get it in writing.
What happens to the training cost if
If I fail the course. If I pass and the airline does not need me at my base. If I leave in month six. If I am dismissed. If the airline cuts the base. Each of those has a different answer and the contract usually only clearly states one. Ask for all five.
What is the conversion path
If the agency contract is described as a route to a direct airline contract, ask: after how long, on what criteria, decided by whom, and what percentage of last year's intake actually converted. If nobody can answer the last one, that tells you something.
What am I paid when I am not flying
Uncalled standby. Sick days. Training days after the course. Days the base is closed by weather. A month with fewer sectors because the schedule was cut. Some contracts pay basic for all of these. Some pay nothing beyond basic and the basic is very small. Know which yours is before your first quiet February.
What is the notice period, both ways
How much notice must I give. How much must they give me. What happens if the base closes, which is not a theoretical question on an agency contract.
Who pays for the medical, the uniform, the ID, the airport parking
Small amounts individually. Together in year one they can be a month's net pay.
What happens if the airline fails
I am putting this last because people think it is dramatic and I watched it happen. Direct airline employees had employment law protections, a redundancy process and in the UK a government scheme for unpaid wages. Agency crew in some cases had a contract with a company that was still trading and owed them nothing beyond the notice period. Same aircraft, same uniform, completely different outcome. Ask what your contract says about the airline ceasing to operate. If it says nothing, that is the answer.
Why I am not saying do not sign
Because most people cannot start any other way, and because most agency contracts convert fine and most airlines do not fail. I signed one, converted, and had a good career. But I signed without asking a single one of these, and I got lucky. Ask them. A recruiter who cannot answer them is not a reason to walk away, but a recruiter who will not answer them is.
-
#2 Ryanair Bergamo, six years, converted from agency at 14 months. Every question on this list is one I did not ask. Every answer would have been fine in my case. The conversion percentage question is the one I now tell every new joiner to ask, because the answer at my base in my year was good and at another base the same year it was not.
-
#3 easyJet, direct contract from the start, and reading this I realise how much I did not have to think about. The 'what am I paid when I am not flying' section should be handed out at every assessment day.
-
#4 In Ryanair training, agency contract, and I asked four of these at the assessment because I had read a version of this advice here. They answered all four, clearly. That is not nothing. Thank you for the fifth and sixth.
-
#5 @connordub that is exactly the outcome I hoped for. The questions are not hostile. They are the questions a professional asks.
-
#6 Wizz, and the training agreement questions are the ones that matter for us. What happens if the airline cuts the base was theoretical when I signed and became real for a base two hours from mine a year later. Ask it.
-
#7 Ex SAS, and the 'what happens if the airline fails' section is not dramatic to anyone who was in Scandinavian aviation in 2020. It is the question. Print this thread.
-
#8 Ryanair Dublin, and I want to add one: ask whether the base you are offered is the base you will actually be at in month one, or a training base with reassignment after. Different contracts handle it differently and it changes your rent decision.