NAIROBI: A strike by Kenya Airways pilots forced nearly two dozen flight cancellations on Sat­urday, affecting thousands of passengers, the national carrier said.

The airline, part owned by the government and Air France-KLM, is one of the biggest in Africa, connecting multiple countries to Europe and Asia, but it is facing turbulent times, including years of losses.

The Kenya Airline Pilots Asso­ciation (KALPA) said no Kenya Airways flight flown by its members had departed Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta Internat­ional Airport from 6am onwards on Saturday.

The pilots announced the strike in defiance of a court order against industrial action and gave no indication of how long it will last.

The airline’s managing director and CEO, Allan Kilavuka, said 23 flights had been cancelled as of 11am due to “the unlawful strike”.

Pilots demand provident fund, payment of salaries; airline warns of strict action

He urged the protesting pilots, who make up 10 per cent of the workforce, to return to work by 10:30am on Sunday. “Failure to do so will lead to immediate disciplinary action,” he warned.

The Kenya Aviation Workers Union (KAWU) subsequently anno­u­nced that ground staff would also strike from 2pm onwards in a separate, long-running dispute with the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) over salary increases.

‘Negotiate in good faith’

Kenya’s newly appointed Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen told reporters the strike was unwarranted and “akin to economic sabotage”.

He said around 10,000 passengers had been affected by the strike.

“I am not saying their concerns are not valid,” he said, appealing to the “goodwill of the pilots to terminate” what he described as drastic action.

Frustrated passengers described huge queues at the airport, with many only learning their flights were cancelled when they arrived to check in.

“We have been told nothing,” US tourist Jill Lee told AFP as she waited in line after her flight to Tanzania’s financial capital Dar es Salaam was cancelled at the last minute.

The 65-year-old was booked to go on safari but said she had no idea where she would spend the night after her connecting flight from Nairobi was cancelled.

“Many people here have nowhere to go. It’s pretty horrible.” On Saturday, KALPA blamed “the hardline stance adopted by” the airline’s management for throwing thousands of travellers’ plans into disarray.

It urged them to “come to the table and negotiate in good faith, if they truly sympathise with the plight of Kenya Airways passengers.”

Injunction

The pilots are pressing for the reinstatement of contributions to a provident fund and payment of all salaries stopped during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Monday, the airline won a court injunction stopping the strike, but an official at KALPA, which has 400 members, told AFP the pilots “were acting within the provisions of the law” and that they were yet to be served with a court order.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2022