Comair not grounded

Comair said yesterday it was working flat out to avoid or mitigate a possible strike today by airport ground staff.

It said it had contingency plans to continue daily operations should it happen.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) served the domestic airline with a 48-hour notice of a strike on Tuesday over wage discrepancies.

If it goes ahead, the strike would begin at 1pm today. Comair operates kulula.com and all British Airways flights in South Africa.

The dispute relates to the fact that 21 employees hired prior to 2009 were paid in excess of the applicable salary scale.

Numsa represents just over 50% of Comair’s 700 airport ground staff out of a total staff complement of 2 200.

Wrenelle Stander, Comair’s executive director of the airline division, said the company was continuing to engage with Numsa in the hope of reaching an agreement.

It has also approached the Labour Court for an urgent interdict to prevent a possible strike.

The matter has been set down for 10am today.

“We are hopeful that we will be able to resolve the situation.

“However, even if this does not happen, we want to reassure customers that our contingency plan is comprehensive and we intend to continue our daily operations,” Stander said.

Stander said employees from across the business had volunteered to assist at airports over the Easter weekend.

He said the airline was also proactively calling as many customers as possible, 72 hours before their departure time, to facilitate check-in and was providing additional bag-drop counters.

Comair customers have been advised to check-in online or use the airport kiosks, and to drop bags at the dedicated fast bag-drop counters. –