Dragonair flight attendants are being given special 'bonuses' of around $100 to $250 a time for working on low-staffed flights or doing back-to-back duties as the airline struggles to cope with a crew shortage.
The special payments - criticised as 'pathetic and insulting' by one disgruntled flight attendant with the Hong Kong airline - were arranged after more than 100 flight attendants phoned in sick on July 1 and 2 in an unofficial protest against their workload.
Dragonair has also told staff it will give free meal coupons to all crew who fly on low-staffed flights and will pay the Airport Express fare and taxi fee home for crew who agree to fly back-to-back additional duties.
The Sunday Morning Post revealed a fortnight ago how Dragonair had cut back on inflight services such as pre-meal drinks, handing out wet towels and giving second servings of wine, coffee or tea on some flights to ease the workload for cabin crew.
Dragonair admits it is short of cabin crew as it rapidly expands its routes and struggles with an unusually high level of resignations but says the situation should ease when 60 recruits join the airline by the end of next month.
Now, after a meeting with the union representing the 1,000 flight attendants days after the 'sick-in' protest, management has agreed to a sliding scale of bonus payments for staff flying on planes with less than a full compliment of cabin crew.
Under the formula, the more understaffed a plane is, the greater the extra payment, so if a flight attendant works on a return flight to Shanghai that is two cabin crew down on its normal compliment of 13, he or she will get an extra payment of around $220.