Wizz has terminated it's 'Head of Flight Operations' Darwin Triggs after his role became questionable, after an investigation into “how the COVID-19 related redundancies were determined and carried out” during the year 2020 .
A Reuters report says, In the letter, the airline said an independent review of its handling of the redundancies found no indication it had acted unlawfully but apprehensions indicate,
“some factors may have been taken into account that were inconsistent with Wizz Air’s culture of open and honest communication and its focus on employee opportunity.”
Last year , the Budapest-based carrier had announced plans to cut 1,000 jobs, or 20% of its workforce, in April 2020, weeks after a travel shutdown in Europe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
250 ( pilots and trainees ) redundancies was the target , and a Wizz manager asked his staffs to draw up redundancy list based on certain criteria in a April 2020 virtual meeting. The Audio recording of this targetted criteria got circulated among the pilots.
“We start off with the bad apples, so anyone who has caused you grief on a routine basis,” the manager is heard saying in the recording, before suggesting “excessive sickness” or declining to work on days off among reasons for termination.
Reuters received a reply from a Wizz spokesman on the subject as,
“It’s clear that some language was used on an internal call that did not reflect the process being undertaken nor the values of the business and that is a matter of regret.”
The manager is also heard to be suggesting, that pilots employed via a Dutch outsourcing firm should be left largely untouched.
“They’re easy to manage because we can let them go at any time. They only have 24 days of (leave) and they’re incredibly cheap,” the manager says, before concluding: “Sharpen your pencils and let’s see what you can come up with.”
