Cabin crew pay in Turkey, Greece, Poland and the Eastern Mediterranean compared: the lira, the euro at Aegean
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#1 THY wide body, and Rosa wrote the southern European pay and Lotte the pensions and James the Australian. The Eastern Mediterranean and the Central European legacy carriers (THY, Aegean, LOT, the Balkan ones) have a pay structure the Western threads do not describe: a soft or softish currency basic with hard currency allowances as the real income. Here it is compared.
The structure they share
A basic in the local currency (the lira at THY, the euro at Aegean which is the exception, the złoty at LOT, the lei and the leva and the dinar at the Balkan carriers), a flight hour pay, and the layover allowances in the destination currency or a hard currency equivalent. The allowances on the Europe and US and Asia long haul are the income for the international crew and the basic is the income for the domestic crew. The wide body course is the pay rise at all of them, as the THY threads say.
THY
Aylin's agreement thread and my year four: the lira basic eroded by inflation and adjusted by the Hava-İş agreement, the hard currency allowances on the wide body routes as the stabiliser, the narrow body crew feeling the lira most. The strongest union of the group.
Aegean
Elena's thread: the euro basic, which is the exception that makes Aegean's pay the most stable of the group, modest by Northern European standards and decent by Greek ones, the allowances on the European routes, the summer hours as the income, the agreement through the crisis.
LOT
Mateusz's thread: the złoty basic, the 787 allowances in dollars and won and yen, the contract structure question, the Warsaw rent. The złoty is the stablest of the soft currencies and the LOT long haul crew do well in a good month.
The Balkan carriers
Croatia Airlines, Air Serbia, the Bulgarian and Romanian flag carriers: the local currency basic, the Europe allowances in euros, the seasonal shape, the small fleets. The crew on this forum from them (Lukasz, the Georgian Alexei at the eastern edge) describe the same structure at the smallest scale.
The hard currency allowances that decide everything
The thing the Western crew do not have to think about: a THY or LOT or Air Serbia crew member's month is decided by the route mix, because a New York and a Tokyo pay a month of rent in allowances and a month of domestic pays the basic. The bidding for the hard currency routes is the bidding for the income, and the seniority that holds them is the seniority that lives well. The exchange rate is the second employer.
The honest comparison with the West
Below the Western legacy carriers on the basic, comparable on a good long haul month in hard currency terms, with the cost of living in Istanbul, Athens, Warsaw and Belgrade below the Western capitals'. The crew at these carriers who hold the long haul live well locally. The ones on the domestic live carefully. The Gulf pays more than all of them and the agreements protect better than the Gulf.
For the applicants in the region
The basic is the floor and the allowances are the income and the wide body course is the pay rise. Read the agreement where there is one (Hava-İş, the Aegean union, the LOT structure) and ask a current crew member for the last three months in the local currency, with the route mix. The number without the routes means nothing.
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#2 THY, and 'the exchange rate is the second employer' is the sentence the Turkish crew have needed in English. The route mix decides the month at every carrier in the group and Nur has compared them honestly. The Aegean euro is the envied exception.
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#3 Aegean, and the euro basic as the exception that stabilises us is true and the Greek crew know it next to the THY lira. The allowances on the European routes are still the income. Nur's group comparison is fair to Athens.
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#4 LOT, and the 787 allowances in dollars and won and yen deciding the Warsaw month is exactly the LOT pay: the long haul crew live well and the Embraer crew on the domestic live on the złoty basic. Nur has placed LOT in the group correctly.
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#5 Croatia Airlines, and the Balkan carriers at the smallest scale of the same structure is right: the kuna then the euro basic, the Frankfurt and Vienna allowances, the seasonal shape. The hard currency routes are the income and the seniority holds them. The structure is the region's.
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#6 THY narrow body, and the domestic crew living on the basic and feeling the lira most is my paragraph in Nur's thread and it is the reason the wide body course is the only thing the narrow body crew talk about. The route mix is the salary.
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#7 SAS, and the Eastern Mediterranean and Central European structure (soft basic, hard allowances, the route mix as the income) is the thing the Scandinavian crew do not have to think about and should understand before comparing. Nur's thread is the comparison the pay section was missing.