KEY POINTS:
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe has put his name behind the airline's latest marketing campaign to launch the airline's flights to Beijing - promoting "ludicrously low fares" to China.
But the letter, which was sent by email to Air NZ customers, has been slammed by the Alliance Party as a "crass bribe" and party co-leader Victor Billot said the offer of ludicrously low fares to China were being paid for by "ludicrously low wages".
Meanwhile, China-based Air NZ crew told the Herald at least eight of the 64 Chinese crew had resigned in the past three months, and Mr Fyfe's letter was "upsetting" as it showed the airline was not sincere in keeping its promise of having salary reviews, as promised in an internal memo circulated by the airline's Shanghai manager.
The Weekend Herald had reported that China-based Air NZ crew were paid a quarter of the base salary their New Zealand counterparts got and a third in away-from-home cash allowances, but Mr Fyfe said in the same email that the report was "misleading".
"Despite some misleading reporting, part of the attraction is pay rates that are 10 times local average rates," he wrote. "In fact, our Chinese-based crew are paid on par with their New Zealand-based counterparts on an hours-worked basis."
But a Chinese stewardess, who used to fly with Singapore Airlines (SIA) and who is now a stewardess at KLM, said she resigned because she couldn't survive on what Air New Zealand paid.
"I take home about $3000 every month at SIA, but at Air NZ, I only got about $750 and it is hard for me to make ends meet with that amount," she said. "Now with KLM, I am getting about $2000 per month doing the Shanghai-Amsterdam flights."
Although under Chinese law, the staff had to be employed through a Chinese company such as Fasco, a former Singapore Airlines Shanghai manager told the Herald that it was up to the individual airline to decide how much staff were paid.
He also confirmed that the amount this stewardess said she received from SIA to be "about right".
Another stewardess, who used to work at a Japanese airline and was getting $1800 a month, said she felt she had been "conned" into joining Air NZ.
"They indicated we would get about the same pay, and said we had to resign from our previous airlines in order to join them" she said. "But we were told about the low salary only in our final interview, when it was too late to back out."
Last week, Fasco called for a meeting where the crew were again warned not to go to the media with their problems and told to "appreciate what Air NZ offered or resign", said a stewardess who was at that meeting.
"If we can find another job, I am sure many of us will quit," she said.
But the airline's spokesman, Mike Tod, said: "[our] Shanghai crew are highly engaged and the attrition rate at the base is on par with that of our other crew bases within the network."
He said the crew were paid in mid-range of salaries in the market they operated from, and said he was unable to make further comments until such time as the Herald could provide specifics on what other carriers paid.
