Air Botswana concludes job cuts exercise
Pauline Dikuelo | Tuesday March 14, 2017 15:46
About 52 jobs were cut in the first phase that ended last December.
Addressing the media recently, the Minister said the airline has been having operational challenges due to losses incurred on the less profitable routes as well as running with an aging fleet.
Mokaila said the airline had a total of 562 staff members and intends to reduce the staff to 350.
“We felt that the airline had a lot of staff members because in the first place, the airline had a total of 562 staff members and eight aircraft comprising four ATRs and four Jets.
Currently, four jets have been stationed leaving the airline with only four ATR’s hence the reason for retrenchment,” he said.
According to Mokaila, a target of 116 redundancies was set excluding the crew. As part of the retrenchment, in December last year they started with a voluntary separation where they received 102 voluntary separation and only 52 were approved.
At that time, there were 40 pilots and 36 cabin attendants for a fleet of four aircraft, but Mokaila says ideally 16 pilots and 16 cabin attendants suffice for the four aircraft in use.
“At this moment, the airline has lost about 10 pilots and some are still going and I am happy to see them find other jobs even though we do not want to lose all of them,” he said.
After failing on previous attempts to privatise the airline, government is trying again to sell the airline to private investors.
Mokaila said at least 17 companies have expressed interest in operating Air Botswana following an Expression of Interest (EOI) that closed on February 28, 2017.
In the EOI government said it was open to proposals on various forms of privatisation of the national airline including joint ventures, ownership, franchising and concessions.
As well as four domestic routes, Air Botswana provides cargo and air passenger services to Cape Town and Johannesburg from Gaborone, Francistown and the tourism hubs of Maun and Kasane.
Financial losses, blamed on a large workforce and an aging fleet, have prompted a five-year turnaround plan that includes cutting costs and cancelling unprofitable routes.