Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer Allan Kilavuka has announced that the national carrier is not in a position to pay pilots' their full salaries.
The CEO who spoke on Thursday, December 2, explained that the reduced pay for their staff was necessary since the sector was still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.
Kilavuka clarified that the airline did not implement a salary cut for its employees but they had opted for reduced pay as the pandemic raged on. He applauded KQ employees for contributing significantly to the continuation of the business.
He also pointed out that he had also been affected by the reduced pay model that KQ had instituted adding that he has never been paid his full salary since taking over in 2020.
"It's not a deliberate move to deny employees pay and they have all the right to ask that we go back to full pay and I would be a direct beneficiary for going back to full pay," Kilavuka stated.
"No employee has gone back to full pay other than the people earning less than Ksh80,000 because those are the lower cadre staff so we decided to pay them 100 per cent of their pay," he added.
Speaking during an interview with Spice FM, Kivaluka stated that the airline is looking into increasing its revenue and sustaining it before progressively returning to normal salaries for their employees.
He also noted that debt owed to suppliers was holding the airline back and KQ was looking into clearing those debts.
"What is currently weighing us down is the backlog of payments to our lenders and suppliers which we deferred during the pandemic," Kilavuka stated.
KQ’s net loss stood at Ksh11.49 billion in the six months ended June, a 19.8 per cent reduction from the Ksh14.33 billion loss it incurred in the preceding similar period.
The airline chose to pay workers between 70-95 per cent of their monthly pay, promising to settle the balance once it offset accrued payments to lenders and suppliers.
The reduced pay was between 5 per cent and 30 per cent and stated in January and was expected to remain for a period of between six to 12 months, with a quarterly review of the proposed pay variation.
