South African pilots are very marketable internationally and local airlines such as FlySafair, which has been in a three-month standoff with its pilots over pay, cannot afford to take them for granted, says aviation expert Guy Leitch.
Though FlySafair only uses Boeings, “there’s a huge demand for pilots who can be converted to the Airbus family relatively easily, and a huge demand in particular for ‘direct entry captains’, pilots with command experience who can be put straight into other fleets”, says Leitch.
Local airlines calculate that they can pay their pilots considerably less than the global norm because they don’t want to leave South Africa.
Leitch, editor and publisher of South African Flyer magazine, says pilots are paid about a third of what they could command elsewhere. “That, if you like, is the notional value of ... the lifestyle glue that holds them in South Africa,” he says.
If they’re going to retain pilots and stop them going overseas and recognise their level of skills and responsibility then they should be getting paid a whole lot more
— Guy Leitch, aviation expert
He thinks FlySafair, which accounts for 60% of domestic seat capacity, has shown by its “hardball, quite arrogant” response to its pilots’ wage demands that it is taking this for granted.
According to recent numbers he has seen, more than 10% of South African pilots went to work for foreign airlines last year. If local airlines continue taking them for granted “then the exodus is going to be even bigger”.
“Sooner or later the pull from other areas that need pilots becomes stronger than the lifestyle glue.”
As the differential between what they are being paid locally and what they can get overseas widens, so too does the pull.
“You also need to look at the broader picture. Will the economy ever get into proper growth, will opportunities exist for their children? And of course personal safety remains a key lifestyle factor.”
An interesting precedent, he says, is SAA 25 years ago.
“All their pilots threatened to go on strike for these reasons. They felt their salaries didn’t factor in uncertainties about economic growth, opportunities for their children, and personal safety.”
There was increasing incentive to move to the likes of Emirates and Korean Air, and it became a crisis. The SAA Pilots Association became increasingly strong over that period.
“The one thing that is missing in the current FlySafair industrial relations exercise is that the pilots no longer have their own union. They’re relying on Solidarity, which may not be a particularly useful strategy for them.”
Going back 25 years to SAA, the pilots threatened to form a breakaway organisation and subcontract their services back to the highest bidder.
To settle that problem a "maintenance of parity" agreement was created which became a major source of grievance between SAA and the pilots, who were accused of having “evergreen agreements”.
One of the clauses was that the pilots would not strike, and for 25 years SAA pilots did not.
“In fact they were very well paid, which was an enormous source of discontent within the airline. The level of payment was tackled by the business rescue practitioners and SAA pilots are now paid around two-thirds of what they were.”
The number of SAA pilots plunged from 750 to about 250, which gave other airlines in South Africa a good pool of talent to draw from. “But FlySafair cannot afford to play hardball,” Leitch says.
FlySafair’s pilot lockout was a huge escalation in the whole strike process and was certainly the last thing that passengers who booked flights wanted
— Guy Leitch
It’s not enough just to argue that the company’s pilots are among the best compensated professionals in the country.
“If they’re going to retain pilots and stop them going overseas and recognise their level of skills and responsibility then they should be getting paid a whole lot more.”
FlySafair has argued that the 10.5% increase demanded by pilots amounts to a 20% increase in overall cost to the company, which is unsustainable.
“I’m not seeing that,” says Leitch. “The reality is FlySafair think they can get away with paying their pilots at the level they’re currently paying them. Time will tell whether that’s a useful long-term strategy or not.
“FlySafair is a very well-run airline and has got a very high standard of pilots. But they’re treating them as if they’re expendable, and this is not good for the long-term industry.”
Leitch suspects FlySafair saw what happened at SAA and decided it was not going to fall into the same bargaining cycle and end up paying pilots more than was comfortable for the company.
“Pilots have a lot of leverage, and I think FlySafair have been trying to draw a hard and fast line in the sand, saying, ‘We’re not going to be a pushover.’”
Leitch believes the wage negotiation would have been “far more responsible and receptive to ideas from both sides” if the FlySafair pilots were negotiating through their own union.
FlySafair has accused Solidarity of holding the country to ransom, which Leitch thinks is “a bit over the top”. If anyone has done this, it’s FlySafair, he says.
“FlySafair’s pilot lockout was a huge escalation in the whole strike process and was certainly the last thing that passengers who booked flights wanted.”
The mediation the company belatedly agreed to after a standoff of more than three months should have and could have commenced a lot sooner than Wednesday, he says.
“The very tone of the way the announcements were made, that FlySafair would consider mediation, sounded condescending and reflected the intransigence that has characterised negotiations.”
FlySafair is being “arrogant” and is taking its pilots, and their sought-after skills, for granted, Leitch says.
“Those skills are rapidly diminishing. And as we lose those skills airlines are going to have to revise the way they try and retain their most senior and experienced captains.
“Their skills are being lost because we’re not keeping up with international pay scales, and because South Africa is not as attractive a place to live in as it used to be. As we lose top-end skills there’s a definite vacuum or shortage of skills that will continue to develop and will be harder and harder to fill.”
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