The South African government on Tuesday urged 600 pilots of the ailing South African Airways to accept severance packages that the Business Rescue Practitioners (BRS) plan has offered them and other workers before the airline is dismantled to form a new entity.
The Ministry of Public Enterprises appointed the BRS to rescue the cash-strapped SAA from bankruptcy in order to save jobs of the nearly 4,700 staff members – including the 600 pilots.
While the rest of the workers’ representatives have accepted the voluntary severance packages, the pilots’ union has not — and was demanding higher voluntary severance packages to part ways with the airline.
According to the government, the Pilots Association’s had also demanded the retention of more pilots in the new airline – a proposal the Ministry of Public Enterprises said would transfer a financial burden to a new airline that must emerge from the business rescue process.
According to a ministry statement, “the 600 SAA pilots made up 13 percent of airline staff, and yet they consumed 45 percent of the wage bill.”
“The lowest of SAA’s 170 senior pilots earns US$200,000 a year, excluding perks and incentives. Of the US$130 million proposed budget for the voluntary severance packages (VSPs), the 600 pilots will get more than US$58 million,” the statement said.
As a shareholder of the state-owned airline, the government said it was “disappointed that it had not dawned on the pilots that the SAA was financially depleted, that the airline was in business rescue process and was fighting for its very survival.”
“The government calls on individual pilots to accept South African Airways’ VSPs and reject their union’s greedy demands, which appear to be less than magnanimous,” the ministry’s statement concluded.
NM/jn/APA