A Kenya Airways cargo plane. FILE PHOTO | NMG National carrier Kenya Airways (KQ) has withheld the March salaries for its pilots who are demanding smaller pay cuts in the wake of business disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a memo to the pilots last week, KQ director of operations Paul Njoroge said the pilots’ salaries for March would not be remitted until they dropped their demand for reduced cuts on their monthly take-home.
KQ, whose net loss for the fiscal year ended December 2020 stood at Sh36.2 billion on the economic fallout of the pandemic, has opted to keep paying pilots 70 percent of their monthly pay, promising to clear the balance when the carrier returns to growth.
The Kenya Airline Pilots Association (Kalpa)— which represents about 414 KQ pilots—wants the airline to remit 95 percent of the pay, with only five percent deferred.
"Though management vividly explained to Kalpa the rationale of the proposed 70 percent salary payout to pilots and sought consent for payment. Kalpa maintained that pilots should be paid salaries at 95 percent and five percent owed," Mr Njoroge said in the Thursday memo seen by the Business Daily.
"Based on our current financial position, pilots’ salaries shall be delayed until when we receive a consent that is affordable."
Monday, the pilots’ union confirmed that the pay impasse was yet to be settled and that it was seeking an improved proposal from KQ.
"Kalpa reiterates and simply proposes that the salary payout to members for March 2021 be equitable to other KQ employees. Your unilateral and coercive actions – on a matter that should be subject to negotiations – will not be entertained going forward," said Kalpa General Secretary Murithi Nyagah in a letter addressed to KQ’s chief human resource officer Evelyne Munyoki yesterday.
The union has frozen KQ plans to cut up to 207 of the 414 pilots on the carrier’s payroll last year over the next three years.
This has seen the pilots working for an average of 30 hours monthly compared to the legally set limit of 105 hours and normally acceptable productivity target of 72 hours following the coronavirus crisis that hit demand for travel.
KQ last year said the pilots account for 10 percent of the airline’s total workforce, but take home the equivalent of 45 percent of the overall pay to employees or Sh6.48 billion based on the carrier’s wage bill for the year to December.This means […]
