OREANDA-NEWS. March 09, 2012. Estonian Air’s current management has been and will be fully open for negotiations and appreciates its Unions decision to not join the strike, reported the press-centre of Estonian Air.

“We will not make any obstacles in respect to the activities of the Pilots Striking Committee – every employee has the right to stand up for his/her rights. We care about our employees well-being and according to the latest survey we have reached the highest employee satisfactions score ever,” said Signe Vaks-Saareoja, Estonian Air board member and the Chief People Officer.

“We appreciate that our Unions did not decide to join the strike. There has been several discussions between the Company and Unions. The focus of these discussions is efficiency of the work, not changing the wage. The aim of the discussions is to support the implementation of the strategy which in turn provides the increase of Estonia’s competitiveness in the international market,” added Vaks-Saareoja.

The owners of Estonian Air have approved the new business strategy with the goal to improve air connections between important cities in Europe and Tallinn, and to strengthen the company’s financial position and competitiveness.

“The company has made a proposal on timelines how and when the new fair and reasonable agreement could be reached. We have also offered the Unions support on legal consultancy to help them to benchmark the conditions of other successful airlines in aviation sector. We hope the newly formed committee will focus on the negotiation process to come fair and reasonable solutions,” explained Vaks-Saareoja.

The goal of the company’s management is to reach an agreement before the peak of the flying period. In three weeks, Estonian Air will switch to summer flight schedule, will significantly increase the flight frequencies and open new destinations.

Estonian Air and Estonian Air regional have altogether 372 employees, in which 224 employees are crew members.