Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
THE JAMAICAN Airline Pilots Association (JALPA) said yesterday that it would not take strike action against the decision of Air Jamaica management to make 40 pilots redundant, but the association said it was prepared to go to court.
JALPA has been in negotiations with Air Jamaica for the past two months and claimed that it offered a 29.5 per cent cut in salary and benefits, but the airline claimed the concession offered by the pilots was 5.5 per cent.
Speaking to The Gleaner yesterday, JALPA challenged Air Jamaica to make its figures publicly available, under a 'show us your card, we'll show you our style arrangement." JALPA produced figures which it claimed supported its claims which it said had been sent to Air Jamaica.
The redundancies, 18 per cent of its 220 pilots, are to be effected in the next two months. Making the announcement Tuesday, Executive Chairman Dr. Vincent Lawrence said the airline needed fewer pilots since it had cut off four routes Manchester, Antigua, Houston and London to Havana and reduced the frequencies of others.
CUTTING COSTS
Redundancies were served yesterday to 23 staff and 17 contract pilots. This follows January's announcement of 200 redundancies in other staffing areas, including 100 flight attendants as part of the company's restructuring and cost-cutting, following the government's re-acquisition of the airline.
The negotiations, said Mr. Lawrence, came after negotiations with JALPA failed to reach agreement.
But yesterday JALPA said: "We stand ready that whenever Air Jamaica is ready to show its percentage, we shall do likewise."
JALPA said that it expected 20 pilots to leave in the near future, some it said would be through retirement. But the majority of these pilots, JALPA maintained, were leaving due to uncertainty over the future of the airline.
Attempts to reach Air Jamaica for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.
