30% of FlySafair flights already cut; no further cancellations expected Tuesday
No-frills carrier FlySafair said it expects all scheduled flights to depart as planned from Tuesday after it trimmed its operations and cancelled 12% of Monday journeys in preparation for a pilots' strike.
South Africa's largest airline and labour union Solidarity have subsequently agreed to start mediation talks on Wednesday.
The company is not expecting any additional disruption to services after reducing the number of daily flights it operates by about 30% to ensure that it had sufficient pilots for each trip, said Kirby Gordon, the airline's chief marketing officer.
FlySafair accounts for about 60% of domestic seat capacity in South Africa and carries an average of 30 000 passengers across 174 flights daily, so prolonged industrial actions could have significant implications for travellers and businesses. The airline employs around 310 pilots, of whom about 200 are represented by the union, Gordon said.
'Solidarity gave FlySafair notice of a one-day strike, but FlySafair hit back with a notice that it would lock out the pilots for seven days, which could last for another seven days,' the union said in a statement. 'This forced Solidarity to extend its strike notice to 14 days as well.'
It separately said that the company was underestimating how disruptive the lockout will be for the company and its passengers.
Solidarity spokesperson Helgard Cronje said that the airline's lockout of its pilots, as well as the strike, would remain in place even as talks at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration got under way.
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