Caribbean Airlines pilots fed up over incentive payments

(Jamaica Observer) Caribbean Airlines (CAL) pilots in Jamaica yesterday joined their colleagues in Trinidad in registering disgust at the company’s failure to pay them their full salaries over the past four years.

“They went out to the airport today (yesterday) and they issued letters addressed to the chairman, who is stationed in Trinidad, but they delivered them to the general manager here,” Gordon Woodstock, executive administrator of the Jamaica Airline Pilots Association, told the Jamaica Observer last night.

“The Trinidad pilots presented their letters on Tuesday to the management there, expressing their disgust that they haven’t been paid their variable incentive pay from as far back as 2010,” Woodstock added.

The move by the Jamaican pilots, he said, was a show of solidarity and unity with their Trinidadian colleagues, as the variable incentive payments to the Jamaicans have been long outstanding.

Woodstock explained that the incentive, which is a part of the pilots’ compensation, has three components — corporate, departmental, and individual — and, when paid in full, works out to 20 per cent of the pilots’ salaries.

The corporate component, he said, is paid if the company makes money, the departmental component is disbursed if the department makes money, and the individual component represents “things that each pilot has control of”.

“So, you can score on one and lose on two, or score on two and lose on one, or you can score on all three or lose on all three,” Woodstock said, adding that in the past when the payments were made they were a year late.

“But they haven’t got it for a while. The last time it was paid in Jamaica was for up to September 2012,” Woodstock said.