Unpaid Air Zim pilots blast CEOs, planes

Pilots have also gone for months without being paid, forcing many to leave the company.

Zimbabwe Flight Crew Association (ZFCA) First Officer, Gutu Kachambwa, told legislators that Air Zimbabwe needs substantive and competent management if it is to transform into a viable business.

He was giving evidence before the Parliamentary committee on transport and infrastructure development.

“For three years, there is no substantive Chief Executive Officer (CEO),” he said.

“How can an airline be run without a competent board? “

Kachambwa continued: “Surely, you cannot have a person on an acting capacity for three years.

“Five board chairmen in 7 years and 3 ministers. For how long will people work on an acting capacity? You are giving people responsibility but, you are not giving them autonomy.”

Air Zimbabwe, understood to have just five air-worth planes is struggling with huge debts which saw the airline abandon the lucrative Harare-London route in 2011, fearing its aircraft could be seized by creditors.

Government recently said it was taking over the parastatals close-to $300m debt.

Kachambwa said there was need for competent management to run the company.

“Some understanding of aviation knowledge is very crucial,” he said.

“Give them autonomy to make business decisions as we need a competent board, most people come from different backgrounds without aviation knowledge and this has caused some big misguided business decisions which have led to losses.”

He added: “Operational efficiency is what we need at the moment.

“The old fleet is very costly on both maintenance and fuel. Let us optimize on our efficiency, crew and bring down our costs.

“We are losing 80 percent of our traffic to other airlines by failing to resuscitate the Harare-London Route.”

Parliament also heard that some ten pilots had left the airline with more expected to quit as air Zimbabwe fails to pay salaries.

“We were 45 pilots at the start of the year and currently we are 35. We have lost 10 pilots to other airlines and we will probably lose more pilots in the coming months,” said ZFCA chairperson Otis Shonhai.

“We have gone for months without getting a salary even up to present day we do not have working contracts with the company.

“All we get is a working allowance. The medical aid sometimes works but most of the times it does not.”