Transport CS warns pilots of dire actions to dissuade them from strike

Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia has threatened pilots with tough action should they proceed on strike next Tuesday even as the national carrier is hit by massive booking cancellations as a result of the pending industrial action.

He said the planned strike was illegal and that it was driven by selfish interests by individuals engineering a takeover of management.

An earlier day-long strike in April is estimated to have cost KQ about Sh200 million, said the CS, pointing to the severity of such actions.

“Taking part in any strike during this very delicate stage in its recovery is tantamount to economic and national sabotage and that the Government will use all the levers available under law to take action against those that will defy this directive,” Mr Macharia said in a statement issued last evening.

He added the government as the largest shareholder would not take any hurried actions driven by emotions as it would only exacerbate the problems.

It would serve as the first formal response by the State to the strike, expected to start early Tuesday, should KQ chairman Amb Dennis Awori and chief executive Mbuvi Ngunze fail to resign.

Macharia lashed at the Kenya Airlines Pilots Association, which issued the notice on Tuesday, pointing out that the internal operations and management of the company should be left to the shareholders.

“On this particular strike notice, Kalpa overstepped its statutory mandate as a union, which is to negotiate and only engage in matters relating to Collective Bargaining Agreements between its membership and KQ,” said the CS is a tough-worded statement.

Intervention

Macharia’s intervention might help ease concerns among travellers who were reported to be cancelling their travel plans with the airline, fearing that their flights might not be available. KQ earlier yesterday sounded the alarm that it had received cancellations on tickets that had already been issued, and was even moving to stop issuing others.

The impending pilots’ strike, which the managers described as unjustified, had caused panic on the possibility of interruptions on scheduled flights. “The threatened action is already costing Kenya Airways significant losses as passengers have begun to make cancellations immediately the action was published,” the airline said.

More travel cancellations were expected by the end of the day, as the uncertainty played out with pilots’ lobby not giving an indication to whether it would shelve the strike. “If Kalpa does not forthwith retract its statement, Kenya Airways will have to immediately stop selling tickets on its network, given the costs associated with selling tickets and not carrying these passengers,” the airline’s statement read further.

The managers said that Kalpa was responsible for the losses arising from the one-day strike in April, which the lobby should have reimbursed to the airline.

KQ had sought to dissuade the pilots from the strike, citing that the operations had improved to a level of break-even, according to the Transport CS – who may have breached the Capital Market guidelines that bar insiders like him from commenting on material information for listed companies.

Among the grounds that Kalpa is demanding the resignation of Mbuvi is that he had been linked to some of the actions that resulted in the losses in a recent forensic audit done by Deloitte.

Macharia said the Government was committed to systematically recruiting new talent for key management and board positions.

On Wednesday, he had told The Standard that the airline should expect major changes in operations and management by the end of October, a position he may have backtracked on in his statement on Thursday.

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