Ex-staff of Fly Jamaica to meet with Labour Department today

-hopeful for owed salaries, potential job alternatives

More than seven months after financial constraints had caused Fly Jamaica to pull out of the Guyana market, Government’s Department of Labour is expected to meet with the affected staffers to address the matter of salaries owed to them and explore the possibility of job alternatives.

The Department will today (Tuesday) engage the ex-staffers at its Lot 82 Upper Brickdam, Georgetown Boardroom at 11:45h.
A former flight attendant of the airline, which had crash- landed at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) in November 2018, has said she is looking forward to the issue of owed salaries being discussed at today’s meeting, and is also hoping to get back to work soon, as she has been at home since the airline has had that tragic accident.
Disclosing that she is owed more than $700,000 for the period November 2018 through March 2019, she argued that passengers would have booked their flights in advance with Fly Jamaica, yet the airline is making excuses instead of paying its staffers following the accident.
“I am not sure about the old employees, but for the new batch, our last salary we received was in October, so we are owed from November through March,” she disclosed.
This ex-staffer further claims she is owed two weeks’ severance pay. “If I am calculating my salary (correctly), for the last five months, it would be approximately $765,000 without our severance pay,” she revealed.
She told of how she had struggled to balance herself financially through this waiting phase, and reminded that workers attached to the airline are most likely the only ones who had not sued for damages, although they are owed salaries for several months.
“While we weren’t doing anything (following the crash), they are obligated to pay us. They never issued a letter until March 31st. Our contract ended on March 3rd for the new batch. So we were still active employees,” she reasoned.
Besides owing scores of workers, the embattled airline also owes passengers, who have found themselves in a dilemma similar to the workers’, with Fly Jamaica still trying to refund affected passengers, some of whom were left stranded following the crash.
The Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission (CCAC) was forced to intervene in the situation following several complaints filed by angry passengers. The airline has promised to refund affected passengers by July 1.
Some 46 complaints have so far been received by the CCAC, and claims therein are valued at about $8,316,504, the Commission said back in May.
Initially, the airline had promised the Commission to begin payments in March, but has been unable to do so due to lack of funds. Subsequent to that announcement, Fly Jamaica had made its staff redundant at the end of March. This was announced by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Paul Ronald Reece in a letter to employees on Friday, March 29, 2019.
It has been reported that the Jamaica-based airline had employed some 400 persons; and Reece had assured employees that the compensation they are owned from November to date would be paid, but he pleaded for time to fulfil this commitment.
Of the 120 passengers and eight crew members who had been on board the Boeing 757 at time of the crash on November 9, 2018, at least six had sustained injuries during the crash-landing. An 86-year-old woman died as a result of brain swelling one week after the incident.
The flight had left the CJIA for Toronto at about 02:10h on November 9, 2018, but had reportedly encountered hydraulic issues, and the pilot had returned to the CJIA, where the aircraft had crash-landed at about 02:53h.