A debate has broken out over a draft circular of the Ministry of Transport that requires high-skilled pilots who want to resign from their jobs must give their employers a 180-day advance notice, a duration that is much longer than required by the Labor Code. Accordingly, airline employees with high qualification levels, including pilots, maintenance staff, repairers of aircraft and equipment thereof, and flight operation and exploration staff, must give their employers a notice of resignation at least 180 days before their expected dates of termination of their labor contracts. This draft rule have triggered a debate among aviation firms and law experts. In a feedback to the ministry about the draft circular, Vietnamese national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines (VNA) general director Pham Ngoc Minh said he supported the draft regulation that a 180-day advance notice is required for high-skilled aviation employees who want to terminate their labor contracts. Most domestic airline companies set up their business plan, including fight schedules and staff arrangements, on a six-month basis, so such a condition on resignation is appropriate. “Currently, the domestic supply of pilots has yet to meet the VNA’s needs. The fact that VNA pilots apply for quitting their jobs to turn to work for other airline firms can seriously affect both the VNA’s business plans and the safety of flight operation activities,” Minh said. It takes VNA at least four months to hire a new pilot, who then needs two or three months to be accustomed to the firm’s operational conditions and regulations, Minh said. Meanwhile, it takes at least eight years to train main pilots, and these pilots need to be trained for three or five more years to fly special aircraft, he added. Minh stressed that the regulation on 180-day advance notice also helps ensure a fair and healthy competition among airline companies in staff recruitment and employment. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s low-cost carrier VietJet Air said in a statement to the ministry that the draft resolution is not in line with the Labor Code. Under the Labor Code, the employee working under a labor contract without a definite term is entitled to unilaterally terminate the labor contract but must notify the employer at least 45 days in advance, VietJet Air’s managing director Luu Duc Khanh said in the statement As for those with labor contracts with terms ranging from one year to three years, the required duration is 30 days, Khanh said. The draft circular violates the create Labor Code, creates discrimination between aviation staff, and affects the employees’ right to select new jobs and new workplaces, according to the statement. Lawyer Tran Minh Hai, from the Hanoi Bar Association, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the relations between pilots and airline companies are those between employees and employers, so they must be governed by the Labor Code. Therefore, the Ministry of Transport’s draft regulation is not appropriate, as a circular cannot alter a law, lawyer Minh said. Meanwhile, Trinh Thi Hang Nga, head of the Ministry of Transport’s Legislation Department, argued that Article 70 of the Law on Civil Aviation of Vietnam allows the transport minister to apply an advance notice of more than 30 or 45 days for employees' unilateral termination of labor contracts. Sharing the same view with Nga, Ngo Van Minh, the standing member of the National Assembly’s Law Committee, said, “The Labor Code is a general law, so if the Code and the specialized laws apply different regulations on the same issue, then the specialized laws prevail.”

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