
A struggling national airline is renting out its pilots and cabin crew
SOUTH AFRICA (Quartz Africa) - Pilots and cabin crew from South African Airways will be loaned to other airlines, as the debt-ridden national carrier tries to save itself.
The airline’s CEO Vuyani Jarana told news agency AFP this week that it was part of his cost-cutting scheme to save South African Airways. Jarana hopes that South Africa’s underused pilots can take advantage of the global pilot shortage, instead of having to lay off staff.
A South African pilot who has since been contracted out to Japan Air was offered a lucrative salary in US dollars and a business class flight home every three weeks. The South African Airlines pilots association, however, said it was “dismayed” that its members would have to be contracted to airlines like Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Cathay Pacific “as a result of extremely poor fiscal control and mismanagement.”
“It is unsettling to talk about job losses in a country that is battling high levels of unemployment. We would like to see a sustainable SAA,” said Werner Human, COO of the trade union Solidarity.
The union has approached the courts to compel the government to place SAA under business rescue, which could force the company to restructure and undertake any other means to save it from its current financial distress. The union also wants parliament to stop bailing SAA out.
South Africa’s labor laws are often seen as advantaging workers, but has sided with South African Airways in previous retrenchmen