SATA - The Atlantic and You ™

Union of Civil Aviation Flight Personnel (SNPVAC), involving SATA Air Açores flight crews on 2, 3, 4 and 5 July, Grupo SATA’s management wishes to state the following:

1 – The strike announced by SNPVAC for the period of 2‐5 July will affect 220 SATA Air Açores flights, impacting the travel plans of more than 17,000 customers;

2 – The period chosen by SNPVAC coincides with the start of the holidays of many Azoreans, who will surely be negatively affected by the strike announced by the SNPVAC;

3 – Similarly, during this period (start of July/summer high season), many tourists planning to visit the Azores will be negatively affected by the announced strike;

4– The issue at hand involves the temporary replacement of 5 (five) SATA Air Açores Chief Flight Attendants who, due to temporary reasons of illness or
maternity leave, are unable to perform their duties.

5 – To address this temporary incapacity, SATA Air Açores proposed that 2 (two) legally qualified flight attendants perform the duties of Chief Flight Attendant on a temporary basis, pursuant to the following points:

a) When company interests so dictate, Article 120 of the Portuguese Labour Code allows employees to temporarily perform duties beyond those for which they were hired, for up to two years.

b) This capacity may be extended or restricted by agreement.

c) The collective labour agreement governing this matter, signed by the SNPVAC in 1988 (Official Journal, Series IV, no. 15 of 28 July 1988), restricted this mobility to one year of consecutive work (Clauses 100 and 31).

d) The joint revision of this agreement, dated 2 February 2010, no longer includes any limitation to the time period for performing duties in other professional categories.

e) Therefore, in accordance with the Labour Code, such mobility is possible without restrictions beyond those provided for by law.

f) During the replacement period, crew members are fairly compensated according to the duties being performed.

7 – Throughout this process, SATA Air Açores has always maintained a cooperative, open stance in hearing and analyzing SNPVAC’s proposals, based on the constant principle of upholding the company’s fairness, equality and competitiveness;

8 – SNPVAC has always asserted that the appointment of flight attendants be definitive in nature;

9 – If SATA accepted this proposal, there would be an excess of personnel in this position when the absent Chief Flight Attendants returned to work, by which: SATA could either keep an excess number of Chief Flight Attendants vis‐à‐vis its business needs, with the resulting associated costs, or the recently appointed Chief Flight Attendants could return to their flight attendant positions at nearly double the salary of other flight attendants which, in SATA’s view, is far from fair.

10 – SATA believes that this strike – for which SNPVAC is responsible – is unfounded and extremely harmful to the company at a time when its competitiveness must be ensured, for the sake of the interests of its stakeholders, the people of the Azores.