Just cannot let ’em go: why it is so hard for China’s pilots to quit
For China’s rapidly-growing airlines, the most important assets are not their planes, but the pilots who find it tough to change jobs.
It is often hard to quit one’s job, especially a high-paying one. But the reasons are different for China’s pilots, who are overly in demand but not in a free market.
Captain Y, a pilot with a major state-owned airline who does not wish to be identified, is counting down his last days with the current employer. He is among the lucky ones who managed to reach a release agreement with his airline, though the process still took more than one year from the time he applied to end his contract.
Last week, two pilots with China Eastern Airlines were ruled by a court in Jiangxi province that they could not end their contracts and must continue to fly or pay 5 million yuan in compensation.
That is more than the normal amount being asked for when mainland pilots attempt to change jobs. A fee of around 3.5 million yuan for captains or 2 million yuan for co-pilots is usually negotiated and paid for by the new employer to the former, according to pilots interviewed by the South China Morning Post.
Still, the demand for pilots in mainland China far exceeds supply, jacking up the cost of the fight among airlines. China had no labour contract law until 2008, which meant pilots had no legal basis to fight their de facto lifetime employment agreements with airlines. But it has not been any easier for pilots to change jobs since then, according to Zhang Qihuai, a lawyer with Beijing Lanpeng Law Firm who specialises in aviation cases.
“Pilots are at the bottom of all workers in China in terms of legal status. Depriving them of the right to resign is a violation of their human rights and against China’s own labour law,” he said.
An agreement was signed by 38 mainland airlines in November 2014 on the “orderly flow of pilots” among themselves. It was decided that the annual turnover rate shall be kept within one per cent. Zhang said the agreement restricted pilots’ mobility and is illegal as the bulk of China’s nearly 30,000 pilots were not represented.
Pilots are at the bottom of all workers in China in terms of legal status
“You cannot have valid agreements concerning third parties, that is like you and I agree someone else will eat no breakfast tomorrow,” he said.
“Queuing for the quota to leave can take years and the hassle deters people from trying,” A pilot at one of the biggest Chinese airlines said. “I heard some people got put off the roster from the time they applied to quit. That means losing a lot of income during the wait.”
He said he would get paid better in smaller companies or cargo airlines, but he does not have any plan to change jobs yet.
Chinese airlines want to keep their own pilots also because of their investment in the expensive training process.
Unlike in most other countries, airlines in China, instead of the prospective pilots themselves, bear the bulk of the cost of training. When they take graduates from the state-owned aviation schools, they pay a fee of around 700,000 yuan for each and have to groom them further with on-the-job training.
Most pilots say they can accept paying back the company the cost of training, but the sums being asked for are unreasonable.
Zhang said current laws in China provided sufficient grounds to protect pilots’ rights, but they were not being enforced.
“Local courts are in cohorts with the airlines,” he said, “The Civil Aviation Administration of China is not doing anything to help.”
He said there are around 200 cases of pilots seeking to quit each year, of which only 50 to 60 would succeed.
