The Financial Gazette

Staff Reporter

AIR Zimbabwe (AirZim) planes were grounded yesterday as its pilots went on strike protesting the non-payment of allowances.

The more than 40 pilots said while they remain loyal to the airline and its passengers, they have been forced by circumstances beyond their control to withdraw their labour due to financial pressures they were experiencing as a result of the non-payment of allowances owed to them, estimated at US$3 million.
But management at AirZim dismissed the demands yesterday saying the pilots were ungrateful.
A senior AirZim official told The Financial Gazette yesterday that the airline had gone out of its way to award the pilots generous salaries that are way above what other parastatals were paying their executives.
“You cannot all of a sudden make such outrageous demands hoping government will find money for pilots alone,” said the AirZim official.
“Not even a single pilot is taking home less than US$1 500; is it not about time they must also understand the situation at the parastatal?” he added.
The latest job action comes barely two months after reports indicated AirZim was struggling to settle its dues amounting to about US$4 million with the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The amount was finally paid last week.
IATA is a clearing house providing on-time settling of interline accounts between the world’s airlines, airline assorted companies and travel partners.
In a letter addressed to the national flag carrier’s chief executive officer, Peter Chikumba, dated September 7, that was also copied to AirZim board chairperson, Jonathan Kadzura, and Transport Minister, Nicholas Goche, the Zimbabwe Flight Crew Association said the allowances in question have accumulated for the past 20 months.
“Due to the above mentioned issue, we would like to inform you that we are unable to perform our duties due to financial pressures caused by accumulation of the non-payment of allowances over the past 20 months,” the flight crew association said.
“This position has been taken purely due to the financial pressures being felt by each individual in our day-to-day experiences. This position is in no way intended to undermine the organisation or our passengers for whom we have unquestionable loyalty.
“Repeated attempts over the last several months have not yielded any results, hence, the unfortunate situation.”
When contacted for comment yesterday, Chikumba did not dispute the industrial action, but said he was busy with meetings.
“Right now we are in a management meeting (over the issues). Let’s talk later when we have come up with a response,” said Chikumba.
The airline is currently engaged in a legal battle with more than 400 retrenched workers who are demanding US$1,3 million awarded to them by an independent arbitrator.
In May, Kadzura said whereas the government had supported AirZim’s decision to retrench, the nod was not complemented with funding for retrenchment packages. This has resulted in the parastatal accruing a monthly debt of around US$750 000, payable to those affected by the retrenchment exercise.
He added that the time was not yet ripe for privatisation of the airline as AirZim does not currently have bargaining power, a situation whose remedy he said lies in clearing the passenger carrier’s debts, replacing old equipment and assisting the board with funding for the retrenchment programme, among others measures.
On a positive note, the airline announced in June that passenger numbers would this year increase by 15 000 following the re-introduction of the Johanne-sburg-Victoria Falls flights that were suspended 10 years ago due to the country’s economic and political crisis which among other things resulted in declining tourists arrivals.

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