Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Minister of Transport and Logistics Mohamed Abdeljalil has backed Royal Air Maroc following the backlash the national carrier recently faced after news emerged of its decision to suspend over 105 trainee pilots.
In comments made at the House of Representatives on Monday, Abdeljalil argued that Royal Air Maroc has been carrying out “gradual recruitment of a number of trainee pilots within a subsidiary that is 100% owned by the national company.”
The minister was referring to Atlas Multiservice, a company affiliated with Royal Air Maroc and whose services the Moroccan airline company is believed to have requested to deal with the employment crisis it has been facing with its trainee pilots since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
In his House of Representatives’ statement, Abdeljalil notably explained that Royal Air Maroc adopted the gradual recruitment process despite the COVID-19-induced economic crisis.
“The recruitment offer in the subsidiary was in return for salaries equivalent to those offered by competing international companies,” he argued.
He acknowledged, however, that the salaries are relatively “lower than their pre-pandemic level.”
The official also cited Royal Air Maroc’s decision in 2015 to contribute to the training of several Moroccan pilots in Toulouse, France, by guaranteeing loans contracted by the beneficiaries of the training, “to which [Royal Air Maroc] has given priority in terms of recruitment if necessary.”
The trainee pilots signed documents that Royal Air Maroc is not “obliged to hire them” at the end of the training period, he argued.
About 105 trainee pilots have been protesting their suspension by Royal Air Maroc, with the company said to have suspended its employment deal with the pilots after suffering financial losses due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Read Also: Explained: Royal Air Maroc’s Suspended Trainee Pilots
The pandemic’s emergence caused frequent closure of airspace, with the ensuing suspension of flights having a considerably negative impact on companies like Royal Air Maroc.
Abdelhamid Addou, the company’s CEO, said in May 2020 that the Moroccan flag carrier was losing MAD 50 million ($5.15 million) per day following the closure of Morocco’s airspace and the related suspension of air travel.
The situation triggered the suspension of trainee pilots, who then reacted to the decision through several communiques and protests.
Prior to their suspension, the trainee pilots were engaged in a program in which they spent the first two years of training at France’s National School of Civil Aviation of Toulouse and the final year in Morocco as part of a contract deal.
Royal Air Maroc also partnered with banks to loan the trainees money to pay for their MAD 1 million ($102,116) training program.
The loan agreement stipulated that trainees would have to pay back the money over a 10-year period after their official recruitment by RAM at the end of their training.
But Royal Air Maroc suspended the trainee pilots for a seven-month period following the emergence of the COVID pandemic. At the end of that initial suspension period, the company extended the suspension for another year, until April 2022.
Abdeljalil said that some of the trainee pilots accepted the job offer at the RAM subsidiary, while other trainees have agreed to work under the same offer.
But statements from the collective of trainee pilots suggest most of the student pilots rejected the Atlas Multiservice offer on the ground that it entails salaries that are very well below the amount Royal Air Maroc had promised them as part of their training-employment deal.
According to Abdeljalil, the crisis with trainee pilots was due to Royal Air Maroc adopting a plan to control its expenses to ensure sustainability and competitiveness in view of the repercussions caused by COVID-19.
Faced with the far-reaching financial repercussions of the COVID-crisis, he argued, Royal Air Maroc “decided to revise its recruitment policy” by hiring pilots through a 100% subsidiary in order to adjust the cost with the pandemic-induced situation.
