The Kenya Airlines Pilots Association (KALPA) ordered all KQ pilots to go on strike on Saturday, November 5, 2022, in the most blatant act of economic sabotage.

The strike is now costing the national carrier hundreds of millions of money every day. There are labour grievances that warrant strikes. But the strike by pilots of Kenya Airways is not one of these.

It is the culmination of an organization that has gotten used to making unnecessary demands and getting away with it. This is clearly evident in the list of demands that have been issued by the pilots as conditions for the pilots’ resumption to work.

These demands include the resignation of the top management at Kenya Airways. The pilots have demanded termination of employment of six top KQ officials and allowed current chief executive officer Allan Kilavuka to stay on as an interim CEO until a replacement is found.

Incidentally, the same pilots pushed the exit of the previous chief executive officer Mbuvi Ngunze in May 2016. Ngunze and other top managers were pushed out after the pilots went on strike, triggering the cancellation of over 20 flights.

Whenever the pilots have staged a strike, the government has always yielded to their demands. This has seen the pilots’ association perfect the art of exerting pressure and dominance over Kenya Airways.

The pilots are aware that their strike will not only ruin all the efforts that are being made towards bringing the ailing national carrier to life. But with the on-going global shortage of pilots, they have clearly demonstrated a don’t-care attitude, fully aware that even if they lose their jobs, they can easily get absorbed by other airlines.

One of the pilots main grievances is unpaid dues. How did this come to be? In 2020 during the pandemic, the national economy crashed. Businesses were shut down, and those that tried to survive instituted survival measures that were accepted across board. These measures included salary cuts. These measures cut across both the private and public sectors.

Day pilots flying from Nairobi fell asleep and missed runaway

Whereas everyone sympathized with the economic situation, pilots at Kenya Airways saw economic tragedy that was hitting the country as an opportunity. They demanded that instead of pay cuts and lay-offs, they would get deferred salary payments. These salaries would be remitted later. In short, they were not taking any pay cuts.

At the same time monthly pension contribution equivalent to 10 percent of the workers’ pay was frozen to be paid later. The national carrier is now being asked to remit about Sh. 1.3 billion annually for the contributions, with the pilots’ share accounting for about Sh. 700 million.

The pilots are also demanding that KQ covers interest and penalties on ab initio loans accrued during period of reduced pay.

This is despite the national carrier’s clear inability to make such payments from its current financial position. For instance, in the 6 months of its current financial year, KQ reported a Sh. 9.8 billion loss. This was however a better performance than the Sh. 11.48 billion loss it recorded in the same period a year earlier.

Writing in a local daily recently, economic writer Jaindi Kisero also noted that “the London route has grown weekly frequencies from seven to 12 and at a load factor of 91 percent, Paris at seven flights at a load factor 92 per cent while New York is at five weekly flights at a load factor of 91 per cent.

“Kigali, despite fierce competition from Rwandair has grown from four weekly flights to 11 with a load factor of 82 per cent while Entebbe has grown frequencies from double daily to triple daily with a load factor of 72 per cent,” he noted.

This points to a recovery that has now been extinguished by the strike, with tens of thousands of passengers left stranded at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and other major airports in Kenya and the region.

For how long will these pilots who have become the national carrier’s spoilt brats keep getting their way, even where it is in breach of the law, good faith, and patriotism?

For how long will these pilots be allowed to continue sabotaging Kenya Airways? It is the time the government and more specifically the president took a firm position to put an end to this mess once and for all.