JOHANNESBURG, April 27 (ANA) – South African Airways (SAA) said on Thursday that they would be assisting passengers who could not travel to their destinations due to the cabin crew strike at no extra fee.
SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said in a statement: “We apologise for any inconvenience to our customers as a result of the service disruptions, and we are assisting all passengers who could not travel due to the strike action to ensure they reach their intended destination as soon as possible.”
The airlines urged all ticket holding passengers who were inconvenienced by the cabin crew strike on Wednesday to receive assistance with rebooking via any SAA Call Centre, City Travel Office or dedicated Travel Agent on condition that the passenger would be rebooking onto another South African Airways flight for a later date at no extra charge and subject to availability of the same booking class. Change of cabin would not be permitted and tickets had to be re-issued on or before 02 May 2017.
On Wednesday around 200 flight attendants gathered outside the SAA head office in Kempton Park in protest against low international meal allowances, causing a number of flights to be delayed and some cancelled.
SAA has confirmed that a total of 50 flights were cancelled for the entire day on Wednesday, while their biggest impact was on the domestic segment of their route network. Only one outbound international flight was cancelled.
“Our planned flight schedules have resumed and whilst operations are geared to full service recovery, we remain exposed to minimal operational delays,” Tlali said.
SAA successfully applied for a court interdict at the Labour Court which declared the industrial action by South African Cabin Crew Association (SACCA) and its members an unprotected strike, which lead to the court ordering the strike action to end immediately.
“Since the court order was granted, SAA has seen a significant increase in several cabin crew members reporting for duty and this has enabled the airline to operate all its scheduled flights for today.”
The airline said their recovery plans were being implemented to assist all passengers with their travel across the entire route network and ticketed passengers whose flights were cancelled yesterday would be supported to travel today.
“The Board of Directors is committed to further engaging with SACCA through a facilitated dispute resolution process over the next two months. We are hoping that we will be able to come to an amicable agreement with the union that accommodates Cabin Crew concerns while protecting the financial sustainability of the airline, even before the court date in June.”
-African News Agency (ANA)
