Nigerian carrier, Air Peace, has reportedly backtracked on its decision to fire a number of pilots from its workforce following a meeting with the carrier's chairman Allen Onyema, the National Association of Pilots and Airline Engineers (NAAPE) and Nigerian Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika earlier yesterday.
Air Peace Boeing 777-300 (5N-BWI) pictured at London Heathrow. Photo by Anselm Ranta | AeroNewsX
Air Peace has been heavily criticised in recent weeks for how it has dealt with the coronavirus crisis and notably how it handled salary cuts with its pilots. On August 3, the carrier sacked 69 pilots. As a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, Air Peace asked pilots to accept pay cuts of up to 40% - and if not, were consequently fired, according to local media.
Local media report that the union threatened industrial action unless the sacked pilots were reinstated.
In a statement in early-August, Air Peace admitted: "In order to protect the continuity of majority of the existing jobs and the possibility of creating new ones in future, the survival of the airline is of paramount importance. When everything comes back to normal those pilots affected today will have a place to come back to in future if they so wish."
The meeting, between the labour union and the carrier's Chairman, Allen Onyema, was overseen by Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika who was pushing “for the recall of the maximum number of pilots that the airline can accommodate without going under,” a statement by spokesman James Odaudu explained.
However, the airline's CEO did not provide details on the exact number of pilots that would be recalled nor indeed when the recall would come into effect.
Nigeria closed its borders in March, at which time Air Peace suspended operations. The airline resumed domestic flights on July 8 and has also operated a number of repatriation services to cities like London over the last couple of weeks.
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