NAAPE parleys airlines for recall of members sacked during COVID-19

INDICATIONS have emerged that many pilots and engineers placed on ‘leave without pay’ by some domestic airlines to survive the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may soon be recalled to their duties.

This was made known by the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), the umbrella body of pilots and engineers in the country’s aviation sector.

To ensure the affected pilots and engineers are re-engaged into the system, the President of NAAPE, Comrade Abednego Galadima said the leadership of the association was already working assiduously with airline operators to ensure the return of the affected members.

His words: “Some of the airlines have been able to recall some of the staff who were at home. As we talk now, most of them have moved back to the pre-Covid-19 salaries for our members. In December, most of the companies returned to pre-Covid-19 salaries for pilots and engineers.”

Galadima, who used the opportunity to sensitize the public on a one-day symposium being put up by NAAPE with the theme: ‘Labour Relations in a Pandemic: Challenges to Employers and Employees’, coming up in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State tomorrow, Friday January 29, 2021, said the symposium will bring more harmony between employers and employees despite the ravaging Coronavirus pandemic.

While, Galadima agreed that the Covid-19 pandemic, which caught the sector unawares, had negatively affected the NAAPE members, he, however, insisted that the one day symposium would help bridge the existing gaps between pilots, engineers on one hand and airline operators in the sector with the aim of promoting harmonious relationship between the two.

According to Abednego, at least 80 major aviation stakeholders and professionals in Nigeria, such as the Chairman, Air Peace, Mr. Allen Onyema, the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Nuhu Musa, the Managing Director of Ibom Air, Captain Mfon Udom in attendance.

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