Dubai 2011: Gulf Wings warns new labour law could hit UAE business aviation hard

Speaking at the industry round table run by Middle East Business Aviation Association (MEBAA) ahead of the Dubai Airshow, Khaldoun Ghalayini, the general manager of Sharjah’s Gulf Wings, said the recently introduced regulations had brought pilots into line with labourers as far as employment laws were concerned.

We had an advisory from the civil aviation authority which specifically brought to the forefront licensing for crew pointing out we could no longer freelance a captain or first officer,” Ghalayini said.

“In order to have anyone fly for your company they would have to be employees under the UAE labour law. First they have to get UAE residency stamped on the passport, which takes at least two weeks, then we would have to apply to the GCAA for a licence. That used to happen in a day but now it is a week before you can get anything done. This captain can only work for you and you have ground time of six weeks before he can fly and generate revenue.”

The problem facing the operators is that if there is a crew shortage they can no longer bring in emergency cover or borrow a pilot from another operator.

If there are any issues or shortages of crew there is nowhere to go. You either have a pool of pilots and have an excess on board creating a financial burden to the owners and the company or you ground the plane.

“If you ground the plane, you risk your reputation and in a broker market like we have in Dubai this hits you hard. Brokers know what’s going on; you can’t brush them off and have to be transparent. If you are grounding aircraft because of shortage of staff they nail you.”

Until the new law was applied to the aviation business, operators could freelance their crew to other charter business to offset their costs and reduce charges to owners.