You may miss your flight: SAA pilot strike looms

South African Airways (SAA) flights may be disrupted and thousands of passengers left stranded on Thursday should planned industrial action by the carrier’s pilot body go ahead.

A source within the SAA pilot body confirmed that the SAA flight deck will down tools at 7am on 5 December. Unconfirmed reports also suggest that cabin crew may stage a simultaneous sympathy strike.

The planned action comes as a result of wage talks gone awry.

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Pilot salaries

In a statement, SAA Interim Chief Executive Officer Professor John Lamola noted that the South African Airways Pilots Association or SAAPA demanded a 30% increase in pilot salaries in May this year but subsequently reduced to 15.7% plus benefits.

In turn, SAA countered with salary increases of 8.46% that it would backdate to April when negotiations started.

Stalemate

In an internal communication to staff at SAA, seen by The Citizen, Lamola also said that he was disappointed by the pending strike.

“I write to you with a deep sense of sadness and disappointment that despite all our collective efforts and many sleepless nights, our colleagues from the SAA Pilots Association (SAAPA) have decided to embark on an indefinite strike action, commencing on 5 December 2024 over a pay dispute.”

“SAA’s final wage offer, made to SAAPA on 24 September 2024,” said Lamola in a media statement, “is significantly higher than the general salary increases in South Africa in 2024, it is benchmarked against international pilot salary adjustments, and is in line with what was granted to the rest of SAA staff members in June 2024.”

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And SAA is not budging to the pilot body, Lamola insinuated in his statement.

“Ironically, the pilots have chosen to go on strike exactly on the fifth anniversary of the day SAA was placed in Business Rescue in 2019,” he said and added that SAA has only recently regained its operational viability after emerging from business rescue in 2021.

“In order not to disrupt this momentum, we are committed to ongoing negotiations with SAAPA and to do everything possible to reach a fair settlement that is mutually beneficial to both the pilots and the company”.

‘Decline into bankruptcy’

Furthermore, Lamola said that SAA cannot return to the lucrative benefits that SAA pilots have historically enjoyed, pre-business rescue.

“Acceding to SAAPA’s current demand for a 15.7% wage increase will trigger SAA’s decline into bankruptcy”, he noted.

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The South African Cabin Crew Association did not respond to questions from The Citizen about its possible participation in the strike.

Lamola added that the airline was presently working on a contingency plan and would keep customers and the travel industry informed.

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