StarTribune.com <http://www.startribune.com> MESABA041806
Last update: April 18, 2006 – 12:00 AM
Mesaba bills ex-pilots for training costs
The bankrupt airline is trying to recover training costs from pilots who left before being laid off. The pilots union is outraged.
*Liz Fedor,* Star Tribune
Bankrupt Mesaba Airlines is insisting that first-year pilots, who were earning $21,000 a year, reimburse Mesaba for thousands of dollars in pilot training costs because the pilots left Mesaba shortly before their furlough dates.
An unspecified number of former Mesaba pilots were sent certified letters this month stating they must pay thousands of dollars to Mesaba within 30 days or their pilot-training bills will be turned over to a collection agency.
Tom Wychor, chairman of the Mesaba pilots union, expressed outrage Monday over management's actions. "Financially it's stupid, and morally it's reprehensible," Wychor said in a Star Tribune interview.
In late 2005, many Mesaba pilots were notified that they would be furloughed in January or February as the airline downsized its workforce in bankruptcy.
Some of those first-year pilots who were about to lose their jobs at Mesaba found employment with other companies and gave Mesaba two weeks' notice.
But before they began flying for Eagan-based Mesaba, they'd signed training agreements calling for them to remain with the carrier for one year or else they would have to pay back part of their training costs.
Within the past week, union leaders have been contacted by several pilots who got the letters demanding quick repayment. Wychor read from a letter Monday that was sent to a first-year pilot who is ordered to reimburse Mesaba for almost $9,000.
Wychor said that Mesaba management spends about $21,000 per first-year pilot in training costs, and the pilots who received training bills are being directed to pay different amounts on a pro-rated basis. A pilot who flew for the carrier for six months -- and left before the furlough date -- would be billed for more than $10,000 in reimbursement costs.
Wychor, a 17-year Mesaba pilot, said that the payback provision had not been enforced during his tenure with the company. He explained that the language was a safeguard against pilots going through Mesaba's training, flying for the carrier for a few months and then deciding to shift quickly to another airline.
In 2005-06, he said, first-year pilots didn't simply pick up and leave Mesaba -- they resigned because they were about to be furloughed.
Mesaba management has a much different view.
"We are enforcing the provisions of the contract we signed with our pilot employees when they joined the company," Mesaba spokesman Jon Austin said Monday.
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