Kenyan pilot strike disrupts air journey in three continents – Newspaper
NAIROBI: A strike by Kenya Airways pilots compelled practically two dozen flight cancellations on Saturday, affecting hundreds of passengers, the nationwide service stated.
The airline, half owned by the federal government and Air France-KLM, is likely one of the largest in Africa, connecting a number of nations to Europe and Asia, however it’s dealing with turbulent instances, together with years of losses.
The Kenya Airline Pilots Association (KALPA) stated no Kenya Airways flight flown by its members had departed Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport from 6am onwards on Saturday.
The pilots introduced the strike in defiance of a court docket order towards industrial motion and gave no indication of how lengthy it can final.
The airline’s managing director and CEO, Allan Kilavuka, stated 23 flights had been cancelled as of 11am attributable to “the illegal strike”.
Pilots demand provident fund, cost of salaries; airline warns of strict motion
He urged the protesting pilots, who make up 10 per cent of the workforce, to return to work by 10:30am on Sunday. “Failure to take action will result in fast disciplinary motion,” he warned.
The Kenya Aviation Employees Union (KAWU) subsequently announced that floor employees would additionally strike from 2pm onwards in a separate, long-running dispute with the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) over wage will increase.
‘Negotiate in good religion’
Kenya’s newly appointed Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen informed reporters the strike was unwarranted and “akin to financial sabotage”.
He stated round 10,000 passengers had been affected by the strike.
“I’m not saying their issues aren’t legitimate,” he stated, interesting to the “goodwill of the pilots to terminate” what he described as drastic motion.
Annoyed passengers described large queues on the airport, with many solely studying their flights had been cancelled after they arrived to test in.
“We have now been informed nothing,” US vacationer Jill Lee informed AFP as she waited in line after her flight to Tanzania’s monetary capital Dar es Salaam was cancelled on the final minute.
The 65-year-old was booked to go on safari however stated she had no thought the place she would spend the evening after her connecting flight from Nairobi was cancelled.
“Many individuals right here have nowhere to go. It’s fairly horrible.” On Saturday, KALPA blamed “the hardline stance adopted by” the airline’s administration for throwing hundreds of travellers’ plans into disarray.
It urged them to “come to the desk and negotiate in good religion, if they really sympathise with the plight of Kenya Airways passengers.”
Injunction
The pilots are urgent for the reinstatement of contributions to a provident fund and cost of all salaries stopped through the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Monday, the airline gained a court docket injunction stopping the strike, however an official at KALPA, which has 400 members, informed AFP the pilots “had been performing throughout the provisions of the legislation” and that they had been but to be served with a court docket order.
Printed in Daybreak, November sixth, 2022
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