Kenyan pilots pen open letter to President Uhuru Kenyatta

Kenyan pilots pen open letter to President Uhuru Kenyatta

“What if we told you that there is some wisdom in the expansion of Kenya Airways? Wisdom that goes far beyond the deliberate short-sighted efforts from within the company to downsize the pride of Africa.”

That is the opening statement by the Kenyan pilots association in an open letter to President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The pilots state that they understood the measure that the government undertook to nationalize the airline in order to safeguard the economic value of the airline which contributes an estimated 5% to the country GDP.

KALPA wants the president to intervene: they say that the planned issuing of letters of redundancy from Kenya Airways will affect at least 4000 families.

They want the airline to reposition itself to fill in the gaps left by Air Mauritius and South African Airways.

The pilots further state that the downsizing will see Kenya lose homegrown talent to foreign carriers.

KALPA wants the President to consider equitable representation of experts in the aviation sector on the board of KQ inline with best global practice.

In the letter, KAPLA says its members sacrificed their wages and are ready to make further sacrifices because they acknowledge the importance of KQ and the predicament that the aviation industry is currently in.

The open letter comes a day after KQ fired about 400 workers on contract in a downsizing program.

Kenya Airways attributed the layoffs to the coronavirus pandemic which it projects will heavily trim annual revenues by December.

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