At least 56 flights have been cancelled as a strike by Kenya Airways (KQ) pilots entered its second day yesterday, with the national airline’s management saying it will initiate disciplinary action against all pilots for absconding duty.
KQ Chief People Officer Tom Shivo yesterday said the management has initiated disciplinary action against pilots who defied order by Chief Executive Officer Allan Kilavuka to resume work.
“Further to the Group Managing Director and CEO’s staff message of Saturday and the memo of the same day, management has observed that pilots who were rostered on Sunday flight wilfully failed, neglected and/or refused to report on duty. This action hassled to the cancellation of 56 flights since 12.00hrs on Sunday,” said Mr Shivo in a statement.
He added: “The action by pilots has occasioned immeasurable inconvenience to guests, a huge financial cost to the company and, by extension, the larger national economy, therefore, this is being treated as defiance of instruction issued by the CEO.”
Mr Shivo said the pilots’ strike is in contravention of a lawful court order and in breach of the Human Resources Policy Manual and Clause 33 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between Kenya Airline Pilots Association (Kalpa) and KQ.
He said the management will immediately proceed with disciplinary action against all pilots who were scheduled to operate flights on Sunday but did not report to work.
Earlier, KQ had announced resumption of flights on the Nairobi-Entebbe and Nairobi-Mombasa routes. KQ had scheduled a flight from Nairobi to Entebbe and back at 12:45pm and 2:45pm, another from Nairobi to Mombasa and back at 1:30pm and 3:30pm, as well as another from Nairobi to Lusaka and back at 5pm and 8:20pm.
It is unclear if the other flights were made, but a spot check at Mombasa International Airport showed no KQ plane landed or took off at the scheduled time. Due to demand on travels between Mombasa and Nairobi, yesterday, Kenya Railways announced an increase of passenger coaches operating between two cities.
“We have, therefore, increased the number of coaches plying this route, effective this afternoon, from Nairobi [to Mombasa and] back ... effective tonight. We will maintain the same capacity for the next three days,” said KRC in a notice to the public.
Yesterday, Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said the government is committed to resolving the impasse. Mr Murkomen urged pilots to be mindful of the consequences of defying a court order and to urgently return to work. The CS said that, in the past two days, there has been relentless efforts by the ministries of Labour and Transport to resolve the issue.
“Considering the defiance of Kalpa and their total disregard for the existing court order, the Ministry of Labour now has to activate the procedures governing industrial relations,” said the CS.
In the long term, Mr Murkomen said, the government has suggested to KKQ’s management to hire an independent expert to help advice the struggling firm on how to configure and reset its industrial relations to make the company attractive to investors.
“Beyond that, this administration has been working on a plan to turn around Kenya Airways, a plan that is contingent on the capitalisation of the airline and nurturing it back as a listed company at the Nairobi Securities Exchange,” he said.
