• Documents filed in court show airline has already lost Sh5 billion in 12 months through flight cancellations and delays.
• But pilots association says KQ has adopted unrealistic flight schedules in order to create an artificial shortage of pilots to justify the recruitment of contract pilots.
Image: FILE
The Labour Court has given Kenya Airways approval to briefly hire local contract pilots for its Boeing 737 fleet pending a ruling on November 29.
Employment and Labour Relations judge Onesmus Makau issued the directive after KQ and the Kenya Airline Pilots Association (Kalpa) made their submissions in the case on Thursday.
Makau urged the parties to maintain the status quo saying KQ shall not hire foreign pilots but allowed them to recruit local ones pending the November 29 ruling.
Documents filed in court showed that the airline has already lost Sh5 billion in about 12 months through flight cancellations and delays owing to a shortage of pilots.
On Thursday, KQ told Makau that if it is not allowed to proceed with contract hiring, the airline risks further ceding passenger and cargo business to its rivals as it will not be able to meet customers' needs.
KQ lawyer Peter Ondati said KQ needs to hire 20 contract captains on its B737 fleet to facilitate route expansion and leave coverage.
Ondati said that a CBA between KQ and Kalpa gave the company discretion to engage pilots for up to two years fixed-term contracts to facilitate route expansion, training of current pilots and reduction of pilots’ accumulated leave.
In an affidavit, KQ's chief of Human Resources Evelyne Munyoki says Kenya Airways has for some years been a loss-making entity owing to factors, which include a high wage bill and frequent cancellations of flights.
“KQ is unable to meet its high operation costs, including its wage bill and continues to make losses," the affidavit reads.
Munyoki says one of the major reasons for flight cancellations is a "crippling" shortage of pilots.
KQ came up with a number of options to address the shortage, including sourcing pilots from South African Airways and taking up pilots retired from the Jambo Jet B737 fleet, she said, "but all these have been rejected by Kalpa".
The HR chief says KQ receives constant requests from its pilots to take leave to spend time with their families "which cannot be granted".
“Such a huge leave backlog cannot be reduced without hiring additional pilots on a contract basis who will take over duty whilst those with accumulated leave take them,” the documents read.
But Kalpa wants the recruitment stopped.
Through lawyer Irene Kashindi, Kalpa said the recognition agreement expressly provides at that the matters covered in the CBA should include localisation of the aviation industry.
“The company wants to engage pilots on contract terms without adhering to the agreements,” she said.
In as much as they admit that the airline has been making losses, Kashindi said, the company has adopted unrealistic flight schedules in order to create an artificial shortage of pilots to justify the recruitment of contract pilots.
“It is public knowledge that the claimant’s losses have been attributed to other issues that have nothing to do with he wage bill,” the affidavit reads.
Edited by R.Wamochie