Julius Baumann
23 May 2008
Johannesburg — SOUTH African Airways (SAA) pilots have made major concessions in their pay negotiations in a bid to put the airline back into the black.
After a year of hard negotiation, the SAA Pilots' Association (Saapa) agreed to concessions that will shave R150m off the airline's costs. These include a R1000 drop in uniform allowance, 5% productivity rise, and having their sick leave slashed. Overtime rates will be reduced from 1,5 times the hourly rate to 1,25 times.
The pilots also agreed to suspend the maintenance of parity agreement for three years from April 1 last year. The agreement benchmarked SAA pilots' pay packages to those of their global counterparts.
In the past six months, the airline has lost 45 pilots in what was one of the toughest years for staff amid uncertainty at the airline now undergoing a painful restructuring. The restructuring , which began last March, is expected to save SAA R600m in the year to next March.
Restructuring included the grounding of six fuel-heavy Boeing 747-400s. Last year, SAA staff, including pilots, agreed to a pay freeze to help the airline cut costs.
Cathy Bill, manager of the Saapa, said that of those who had left the airline only five pilots had accepted the voluntary severance packages offered to staff at the end of last year, but that the rest were disillusioned with the restructuring process.
Bill said SAA's pilots were certainly vulnerable to poaching from other airlines.
As part of the agreement the pilots will get a 8,73% increase based on a local market movement formula determined from a study that benchmarked salary increases in comparable companies and job categories in SA. Next year's increases will be determined by a similar study.
Bill said the pilots recognised the need to cut costs, and had made suggestions for cost savings.
She hoped that the second part of the restructuring plan, expanding SAA's network and fleet, would help improve conditions for pilots.
SAA announced recently that it would be recruiting 100 pilots. "We have had co-pilots that have been waiting for promotions for 12, 13 years, and we hope with the expansion that will now finally be possible," Bill said.
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