KENYA: 130 Kenya Airways Pilots Fled To Middle East Airlines In Past One Year, Needs 200 More

The Kenya Airline Pilots Association (KALPA) dismissed claims by Kenya Airways CEO Sebastian Mikosz that the airline's pilots are the best paid in Africa, gobbling up a large share of its income.

KALPA dismissed suggestions that its members' pay packages are part of the financial woes facing KQ and instead attributed the problems to high cost of tickets, poor management and high expatriates' pay.

Kenya Airways has lost 130 pilots to Middle East airlines in the past one year due to poor pay, the national pilots’ association has said.

The association said currently there are 430 pilots at Kenya Airways and that the national carrier needs additional 200.

The association's secretary-general, Mureithi Nyaga, told the National Assembly Transport and Housing Committee last week that if indeed they were the best paid in Africa as claimed by the Kenya Airways CEO, then their members would not have been lured by other airlines.

Mr Nyaga told the MPs that other international airlines have also been targeting KQ engineers whom he said are some of the best trained in Africa.

Our members have moved to the Middle East airlines who are offering better packages. Why are they not turning down the offers if they are the best paid by KQ? Asked Mr Nyaga.

He told the committee chaired by Pokot South MP David Pkosing that pilots flying Boeing earn a gross salary of Sh483,350 while those flying Embraer earn Sh407,916.

The captains, he said, get a house allowance of Sh36000 while first officers get Sh30,814.

Pilots who fly outside the country are also entitled to Sh20,000 as accommodation per night, he said.

The figures the CEO stated are exaggerated. I am not aware where the CEO of Kenya Airways got the Sh1.6 million he was telling you about, Mr Nyaga said.

Mr Mikosz, appearing before the same committee, had said the pilots take home Sh1.6 million per month despite flying only 533 hours in a year.

Mr Nyaga said that the pilots fly 780 hours in a year.

About half of Kenya Airways’ payroll is paid out to its pilots who form the minority of the workforce disclosures have shown, shinning the spotlight on the airline’s employee compensation.

An official document by the national carrier showed that although pilots accounted for 13 per cent of the airline’s total workforce, they took home the equivalent of 45 per cent of the overall payout to employees.

Staff under the umbrella of the Kenya Aviation Workers Union (KAWU) accounted for the bulk of workforce at 65 percent but took home an estimated 30.5 percent of KQ’s payroll.

Managers at the airline accounted for 22 percent of the workforce and drew compensation equivalent of 22 per cent of the payroll.

Expatriates represented 0.3 percent of the airlines workforce and pocket 2.6 percent of its payroll.

Going by KQ’s latest financial report for the nine months to December 2017, pilots were paid a combined Sh4.25 billion from the airline’s Sh9.45 billion wage bill for the period while the KAWU staff took home Sh2.89 billion.

The management took home Sh2.08 billion in salaries while expatriate staff received Sh245 million.

At the end of 2017, the airline had 414 pilots, out of its overall workforce of 3,548.

The revelations came as the struggling airline put up a spirited fight to take up the management of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) as a way of strengthening its financial position.

The airline had proposed a merger with the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) an issue that has stirred public debate and split its staff.

Kawu and the pilot umbrella body, the Kenya Airline Pilots Association (Kalpa), have been on differing ends of the table over the takeover bid.

The Kenya Aviation Workers Union (Kawu) told the parliamentary committee on transport that it was opposed the merger proposal, saying it will result in job losses and disadvantage other facilities managed by the KAA.

Kawu members went on strike last month to protest against unfair staff hiring, poor remuneration and the proposed takeover of the airport by the airline.

On the other hand, Kalpa has supported the merger bid although its officials admitted that they were not privy to the details of the Privately Initiated Investment Proposal (PIIP) presented by KQ.

Wage has been a key point of protest for employees of the carrier as the past five years have remained marred in industrial actions, some resulting in flight disruptions and others paralysing services on some routes.

The airline has been involved in protracted labour disputes with its pilots and has also suffered from poaching of talent by wealthy Middle East carriers that can afford to pay higher wages.

Technicians, engineers and other Kawu members have also downed their tools multiple times over salary disputes.

KQ has been targeting a reduction of its wage bill as part of a wider cost-cutting drive aimed at returning it to profitability after having reported the worst losses by a listed firm in Kenya in 2015 and 2016.


Tourism Observer

KENYA: Kenya Airways Improves, Many Congratulations To Management

Over the last two years, Kenya Airways has weathered the most turbulent period in its four-decade history.

However, the airline has demonstrated resilience against the after-shocks of the poor performance recorded in the financial year 2014-15.

Pessimism about the airline’s prospects and future is slowly dissipating, thanks to aggressive measures geared to sustained recovery of the national carrier.

Kenya Airways is now on a promising trajectory. Operation Pride – the strategy to turn around the airline – is yielding fruit.

Some initiatives under the strategy have been successfully executed resulting in improved financial and operational performance.

In the last three quarters of 2016-2017 financial year to December, for instance, KQ flew 3.4 million passengers, the highest number in its four decades of existence.

We achieved this despite tight fleet capacity arising from the lease and sale of some aircraft as part of ongoing measures to manage costs.

A lot of this growth is coming from Africa, especially North Africa and East Africa where capacity grew by 9.6 per cent and 7.1 per cent, respectively.

From the foregoing, it is evident that Africa is contributing significantly to the airline's recovery. Indeed, Africa remains our mainstay and is at the heart of our recovery strategy.

For us, it’s not just about offering seamless connectivity, but also enabling the sustainable economic development of the continent.

Last year, we were awarded the African Airlines Association Outstanding Service Award for service delivery, innovation and competitiveness in the African aviation industry.

We are winning in Africa. We were recognised by the World Travel Awards as the leading airline in Africa and the best business class airline in Africa.

Fleet rationalisation is one of the core recovery initiatives. The other is network optimisation geared to growing revenue by capitalising improving connectivity.

This includes increasing flight frequencies on certain routes to maximise volumes and revenue. We are also in the process of reviewing certain strategic relationships with our key airline partners.

An example is our joint venture with KLM which has undergone a series of iterations in line with our network optimisation process. These changes will increase revenue from our European and North American markets.

This journey has been exciting though not without some challenges. It must be understood that the aviation business is perennially fraught with risks ranging from bad weather to currency volatility and uncertain oil prices.

Although our On-Time-Performance (OTP) – a measure of operational efficiency – has improved overall, we experienced delays in December owing to bad weather in Europe and the Middle East.

Also, and our subsidiary Jambojet had challenges on-boarding new aircraft resulting in delays over the Christmas period. We know that delays constitute a major pain point for our customers and are working hard to minimise such inconveniences.

Kenya Airways has also been losing pilots and engineers. We see this is a major area of concern and a risk factor to the organisation.

The Board has made some decisions aimed at attracting and retaining critical talent. Additionally, management has been working closely with the Kenya Airline Pilots Association, to drive productivity and find a winning formula on contentious issues.

Enhancing employee productivity remains a critical pillar of Operation Pride.

As such, the airline has had to let go of a number of employees and redeployed others within the organisation. But we do not anticipate any further major layoffs in the near future.

One major plank of our turnaround is the balance sheet optimisation. The work around this has been going on over the last six months.

I recognise the strong support and willingness of our financial partners to support the consensual approach to liquidit and deb reduction. We have made significant progress. The next two months will be crucial to the closure of this issue.

Let me take this opportunity to clarify that the Kenya Airways Board has reviewed the contract with Mckinsey, the consulting firm advising on the turnaround.

It was felt that since major initiatives under Operation Pride are now complete, the performance-based contract under which Mckinsey were hired required changes. Going forward, we will pay Mckinsey only for specific expertise.

All the remaining Operation Pride initiatives are being implemented by the KQ team under a Chief Transformation Officer, within Kenya Airways.

In a nutshell, Operation Pride is in cruise mode and there’s no turning back. Kenya Airways’ prospects are shining brighter by the day.

The dark days are certainly behind us. We may not be there yet but the gains so far achieved under Operation Pride are something to be proud of. I urge all Kenyans to support the national carrier as it enters its next phase of growth as the Pride of Africa.

Kenya Airways Pilots Strike

Kenya Airways (KQ) faces further turbulent times.Airline finally resumes cancelled flights but pilots insist strike still on from tomorrow Yesterday, the airline had cancelled five flights to various African countries as go-slow by its outsourced staff begun to weigh on its operations.

And last evening, the airline announced that operations had returned to normalcy adding that 67 flights had taken off “from the around the network as at 4pm Kenyan time.”

The flight cancellations were occasioned by a strike by at least 500 employees outsourced by KQ through Career Direction Ltd (CDL) who began work boycott last Friday.

Flights 600 to Mombasa, 432 to Kilimajaro, 350 to Juba, 706 to Lusaka/Harare and 740 to Maputo were cancelled after their crew failed to report to work. Flight 782 to Livingston/Cape Town was also delayed, leaving hundreds of travelers stranded.

This month alone, the airline has cancelled or delayed flights twice, putting the ‘Pride of Africa’ into more troubles.

On October 2, KQ delayed flights at Moi International Airport and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

The contracted employees have decried poor remuneration, which they want addressed by the airline that has continued to post huge losses despite its efforts to cut down on its wage bill by outsourcing crew and other low cadre employees.

“Some of our outsourced staff including cabin crew have stayed away from work from Friday and we are working with their employer to resolve any issues they may have,” KQ said in a statement.

“Despite our effort to solve the problem by combining several flights, we have made the difficult decision to cancel some as the safety of our guests is paramount,” it added.

Further chaos is expected as the pilots, despite a court order, have insisted that their strike notice that expires early tomorrow morning is on.

Yesterday, the Ministry of East Africa Community, Social Protection and Labor announced that it had convened a conciliation meeting today between various parties to seek an amicable settlement on the issues that have given rise to the pilot’s strike notice.

“The separate meetings involving conciliation committee members, staff union representatives, KQ management as well as Cotu and FKE will take place at the ministry’s boardroom from 9am,” said the ministry’s Director of communications, Kaplich Barsito.

Kenya Airways has announced that operations have resumed and that there will be no interruptions.

In a press statement posted on its Twitter page, KQ said that 67 flights have taken off since 4pm and that scheduled evening flights will leave as planned.

Earlier, Kenya Airways had cancelled several fights scheduled for Sunday morning and delayed another after several outsourced crew failed to report to work.

In a statement issued Sunday morning, the national carrier said the staff, including cabin crew had stayed away from work since Friday due to issues with their employer.

“As per the safety regulations that the airline abides to, minimum number of cabin staff per aircraft type is require and on some of our flights we were unable to reach these levels,” the statement said.

The cancelled flights were KQ 600 to Mombasa, KQ 432 to Kilimanjaro, KQ 350 to Juba KQ 706 to Lusaka/Harare, KQ 740 to Maputo, KQ252 to Dzaoudzi and Moroni, while flight KQ 782 to Livingston/Cape Town was delayed.

The statement added that travellers in the affected flights would be re-booked on other flights or airlines.

The airline is grappling with a strike threat by members of the Kenya Airline Pilots Association (Kalpa), who have said they will down their tools on Tuesday despite a court order barring the industrial action.

Should the pilots go ahead with the strike, this could be a financially costly standoff for the troubled airline that is trying to fly out of turbulence.

However, despite the staff hitches, the airline said on its twitter page that it "operated 60 flights out 72 scheduled today".

Kenya Airways, already facing financial difficulties and a threatened pilots' strike, cancelled five flights on Sunday after outsourced cabin crew walked off the job.

While the stoppage only involved a small number of workers, it coincides with a deep malaise at the airline, which in July posted a net annual loss of 26.22 billion shillings ($250 million/230 million euros) -- the worst ever since its privatisation in 1995.

The losses follow a series of disastrous strategic decisions touching on maintenance costs, a hedge on fuel prices and rising dollar-denominated loans.

"Some of our outsourced staff including cabin crew have stayed away from work from Friday and we are working with their employer to resolve any issues they may have," Kenya Airways said in a statement on Twitter.

"As per the safety regulations that the airline abides to, minimum number of cabin staff per aircraft type is required and on some of our flights we are unable reach these levels," it said.

The dispute forced the carrier to scrap flights to the Kenyan city of Mombasa, Kilimanjaro (Tanzania), Juba (South Sudan), Maputo (Mozambique), and a further flight to Harare, Zimbabwe, via Lusaka, Zambia. No intercontinental flights were affected.

On Friday, some 700 outsourced workers employed by Career Directions Limited complained they had spent six years being retained on one-year contracts and demanded their wages be aligned with those of Kenya Airways' staff.

Kenya Airways faces a strike on Tuesday by disgruntled pilots who have for months been expressing a lack of confidence in the managerial team.

The pilots' union KALPA said last week they would stop work for a week if management did not step down.

The airline, which later this month will release half-year results, responded by obtaining a court order to bar industrial action.

On Thursday, Transport Minister James Macharia said a strike would amount to "national sabotage."

Loss-making national carrier Kenya Airways canceled several flights on Sunday after some crew members failed to turn up for work, the latest blow as the airline struggles to avert a strike called by its pilots.

"Some of our outsourced staff, including cabin crew, have stayed away from work from Friday and we are working with their employer to resolve any issues they may have," the airline said in a statement.

Flights to the Kenyan city of Mombasa, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Juba in South Sudan, Lusaka in Zambia, Harare in Zimbabwe and Maputo in Mozambique were canceled because there were not enough crew members to fly safely.

Kenya Airways later said that normal service had resumed but offered no further details.

Pilots union KALPA has called an indefinite strike, scheduled to start on Tuesday, to protest against the management of the airline, which is part owned by the government and Air France KLM.

The union said its members had lost confidence in the ability of the airline's chief executive and chairman to end years of losses. On Friday, a court ruled the strike was illegal and the government had said it would be "economic sabotage". On Thursday, the airline said it had halved its pre-tax loss to 5 billion shillings ($49.4 million) in the past six months thanks to a recovery in passenger numbers.