Fire Airzim top brass

top managers and board members saying they lack the requisite aviation expertise to turn around the parastatal’s fortunes.
In a report seen by The Herald, and which was submitted to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communication on Monday, the pilots also alleged that the airline was overstaffed.
“The airline organogram is top heavy with an unusually high number of unjustified supporting staff. The current industry staffing ratios are – one aircraft: 85 employees. The airline’s current aircraft to employee ratios is one aircraft: 280 employees,” the pilots said.
They also recommended restructuring at management and board level.
“For effective turn-around process to work, some of the current top management members and board members should be relieved of their duties. The airline’s board of directors lacks members with competent aviation expertise, and so can easily be misled or hoodwinked by top management who might have their own unsavoury personal agendas,” reads the report.
“There should be representation at board level by knowledgeable senior and retired flight crew members to give professional advice and guidance to the board. There should be pilot representation at a top management level including the executive committee and in human resources where recruitment of key flight operations department personnel is concerned.”
The pilots called for a skills audit alleging that top managers employed unqualified relatives and that the retrenchment was not done professionally.
The pilots recommended that a skills audit be carried out so as to put the right people in their areas of qualifications without fear or favour.
“Some of the very competent personnel, who were retrenched for some managers’ personal reasons, would be brought back to work after a properly executed skills audit. In the same way, incompetent personnel who were left in the airline would now be retrenched,” the pilots said.

They demanded that the retrenchment process be completed “so that the airline stops bleeding by paying non-productive personnel”.
They also demanded representation on the equipment acquisition committee saying this particular section was the heart and core business of any airline.
“It is strongly recommended that the very comprehensive MA60 accident inquiry report be released and examined by the Clerk of Parliament as it contains some of the gross malpractices that were carried out at the airline,” the pilots said.
They said Air Zimbabwe has great potential and there was a lot of business for the national airline if the right people were put in the right positions.
“That the airline has failed dismally to command a fair market share denotes gross mismanagement, wrong position and failed strategy…That the business is there is evidenced by the number of airlines coming to Zimbabwe with big wide-body aircraft, and leave filled to capacity. There is serious aircraft under-utilisation at the national airline,” added the pilots.
They attributed the current state of affairs at Air Zimbabwe to poor strategic thinking from management, mismanagement of resources and lack of loss control measures, financial indiscipline by management and some employees among other things.
The pilots said there was no reason for management to reduce Air Zimbabwe’s route network.
“Due to gross mismanagement and lack of foresight, the national airline has reduced its route network drastically in an effort to contain costs but revenue realised from smaller network is insufficient to cover the fixed costs which remained largely unchanged. The competition in the form of Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways and British Airways have taken advantage of the airline’s lack of vision and come to Harare several times with wide-bodied aircraft eight and seven times weekly respectively. This only proves how much business there is to and from Harare,” the pilots said.
The SAA flies to Harare three times a day and also frequents other local destinations.
When operational, the airline incurs US$3.4million monthly loss and its debt is estimated at US$100 million.
On Monday the striking pilots told the committee that they would not return to work until their outstanding salaries are paid in full.