Thursday, 06 August 2020 04:39

Pilots, engineers threaten to shut down domestic airlines over sacked colleagues

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National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), on Wednesday, threatened to shut down aviation sector following sack of dozens of its members.

It issued a two-week ultimatum to airlines, who have sacked or planned to sack their pilots and engineers, to rescind the decision, warning that they could no longer guarantee safety.

Air Peace, Nigeria’s biggest carrier, and Bristow Helicopters – operating in the oil and gas sector – had sacked over 100 pilots and engineers citing Covid-19 pandemic.

Pilots and engineers in the two organisations had earlier rejected pay cut, prompting the managements to take a drastic decision to sack them.

Addressing a press conference in Lagos, President of NAAPE, Mr Abednego Galadima, declared that the body had resolved to withdraw services of pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers across all airlines.

He called on Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to, as a matter of urgency, prevail on these airlines to stop what he called “the unilateral sacking of pilots and engineers.”

The association demanded that Bristow and Air Peace should immediately recall all sacked pilots and aircraft engineers until all labour issues were resolved.

Failure to do that, it asked NCAA to ground the airline because of attendant safety concerns created by their action.

Galadima said: “As a result of the known consequences of these illegal actions, we shall be forced to withdraw our guarantee of industrial peace within the industry, if this call is not heeded within two weeks.

“Our union will be left with no other option but to withdraw the services of pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers across all the airlines.”

 

Daily Trust


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