Johannesburg — SOUTH African Airways (SAA) operations are expected to start returning to normal today, after SAA and trade unions struck a deal to end the damaging six-day strike which brought chaos to air travel in SA.

SAA and the cabin crew and ground staff unions settled on a compromise 6% wage increase yesterday, which the unions said would be sufficient to get their members back to work today.

The agreement, which is due to be signed this morning, ends a strike that cost the national carrier millions of rands in lost revenue, and saw employees forfeiting a week's wages.

However, SAA passengers can still expect delays on domestic routes while international and regional flights will remain grounded until tomorrow.

The United Association of SA (Uasa), which represents the majority of SAA's cabin crew and ground staff, said yesterday that "operations should be running smoothly again by Friday".

Uasa and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) had initially demanded an 8% wage increase. The airline had offered 5%.

In terms of the new deal, all employees will receive a 6% salary increase. Negotiations late on Tuesday night also saw SAA agreeing to a 5% increase in medical aid and housing contributions, as well as an additional 1% nonpensionable adjustment.

Uasa transport sector manager Gerhard Ueckermann claimed a victory for employees, saying: "Although we were not entirely happy with it â-oe the leadership of the union felt it to be the responsible thing to do and in the best interest of all concerned to recommend the acceptance thereof to the members."

He attributed the resolution to intervention by Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana and the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

SAA declined to comment on the details of the agreement.

However, SAA spokesman Onkgopotse Tabane said yesterday that SAA welcomed "the movement towards a resolution of the current impasse and is happy with the progress made so far".

Last night Satawu said it was still awaiting a response from its members as to whether or not to accept the revised offer, but initial indications were that they, too, would accept.

Ueckermann said the "devastating strike" was a "very expensive lesson on how not to conduct wage negotiations".

"SAA management initially painted a very gloomy picture of the company's affordability to pay, only to announce handsome profits after deadlock had been declared," he said.