Hilton Hotel, Jakarta, Friday afternoon, 1998-05-01 17:00 local (Z+7)
Greetings, Everyone,
I had meant to get a message off sooner, but things have been hectic. Just when I think the state of affairs at Tower Air could not possibly get worse, it does. It makes one want to just go to bed and forget it all, but then you have to eventually wake up and deal with it.
Two of our high-seniority captains apparently decided they didn't want to deal with it anymore. One quit a couple of days back as soon as he got back to New York. Another quit here yesterday. Both are quite well off I'm sure, having fed at the Tower trough for a number of years back when you could make real money here, so neither of them really need to work, and both would have hit the age sixty mandatory retirement within a few months of when I will.
The immediate cause of their departures is the “return to power” of the director of crew scheduling who was removed from that position about eighteen months ago. In that interval, we've had no less than five different crew scheduling directors. None felt they could remain in that position given the requirements that Morris Nachtomi, Tower's owner, imposed upon them.
A secondary problem is that we're not getting paid as we should. I don't like this, but it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does most. Tower pays twice a month, the fifteenth and the thirtieth. The check of the fifteenth includes overtime, extended duty, and all other extra pay from the previous month as well as half of the current month's guarantee. April's check of the fifteenth included only the guarantee. The company apologized and said they'd make up the difference on the twenty-fourth, and then only made up about half the difference on that day. Another apology and a promise to take care of it on May 15. Everybody is pissed.
There is one happy flight engineer however. On the twenty-fourth the company direct-deposited to him all they owed him...plus $112,000. Normally such errors are easily reversed. Direct deposit agreements include limited ability to take money out (if you didn't know that, you do now). None of us like that, and some of us dislike it so much that they've established accounts just to receive the direct deposit, accounts that include instructions to their banks to immediately transfer any money coming into those accounts to other accounts. So, when Tower tries to back out a mistake, the money is already gone. I'm thinking of doing the same. Some months back they took out $1400 from my account that they had never put in. Fortunately they put it back the next day.
The engineer is one of these double-account people, and it gets more amusing. He had turned in his resignation prior to the mistake. He's going to work for Japan Airlines. A frantic chief pilot tried to reach him here just before the engineer was leaving for Jeddah. The engineer said he'd return the call when he got there. We're all waiting to hear the outcome.
I never did hear what the outcome was, at least not that I can now remember 20 years later.
Anyway, back to the main thread. The pilots are now back under the regime that existed when I first came to Tower. More on what that means to me later.
It's not only the high-seniority guys who are having problems. Since the first of the year, Tower has hired and trained approximately fifty new first officers. Of that group, seventeen have quit thus far. Not good!
In this case, the problem is having to go to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. When you're junior, the only lines you can hold are the ones no one else wants, and nobody, NOBODY, wants Jeddah. Companies overcome employee reluctance to go to Saudi Arabia by paying exorbitant salaries or large bonuses, whatever it takes to get people there and keep them there.
But not Tower. In fact, if you get Jeddah, you make less money. You won't fly more than your guarantee—fifty hours for a new hire, sixty after you've served year's probation. The reason is that Saudi assigns Tower the shit work, short flights that don't allow pilots to exceed the guarantee, and that's what I'll be doing if and when I ever finish the captain upgrade process. The upgrade possibility is the only thing that's keeping me from quitting right now.
Which brings us to my current predicament. The ffof—fickle finger of fate—had the crew I'm part of next up when some military charters came in. So, tomorrow I commercial back to Okinawa to begin ferrying troops from there to Thailand through May 18.
The difficulty here is that my GDO, guaranteed days off, fall in that period. The old regime that is now the new regime is up to their old tricks. What to do? Well, I'll call New York in a few hours and try to negotiate. Probably the best I can hope for is to slide my GDO to later in the month. That won't be too bad.
If they refuse even that, I may join the two captains in early retirement. Tower already owes me twenty-nine days off that they've previously taken and not given back. Things are getting out of hand.
So I'm leaving Jakarta, possibly never to return. Tower will probably fly the Hajj from here next year, but if I'm still with Tower, I'll be a low seniority captain, and low seniority people can't hold a Jakarta line.
I wouldn't want to live here, but I like the place for temporary stays. I'm afraid though, this place is in for a lot of trouble. They've had 25% inflation in the past three months. It will get worse as the laws of economics bring the local purchasing power of the rupiah to a match with its devaluation with respect to other currencies. Indonesia hasn't had unemployment for years until now, and now it's soaring.
The government has been making dissidents “disappear” in an effort to stem criticism, and human rights groups throughout the world are screaming. Even the U.S. government formally complained to President Soeharto a few days ago.
During the ten day break between the inbound and outbound phases of the Hajj, Tower kept two crews here to get out the two airplanes parked here if necessary. Things are very unstable. Some American companies are already pulling dependents. Gee, maybe I should be glad I'm getting out early.
Enough for now. More later. I want to see if C.J. has sent me any messages.
Terry