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Skywise defends former staff allegations

Cape Town - Disgruntled former employees of low-cost airline Skywise have aired their views following the suspension of all its flights earlier this week.

Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) suspended all Skywise flights on 2 December due to unpaid airport charges.

A Fin24 user who wishes to remain anonymous said he "worked for Skywise and saw this coming months ago", adding that in his view there is "no sinister plot" against Skywise in the aviation industry.

He alleges that Skywise staff only got letters of appointment 3 to 4 months after being employed. He claims this was not an employment contract stipulating employment conditions, but a measure which enabled Skywise to get employees "to work long hours without any overtime compensation".

READ: A hit on Skywise is a hit on SA, says co-chair Javed Malik

In response to this allegation, Skywise told Fin24 on Thursday that all its staff contracts were in place and signed and done on time.

"The contracts stipulate all the necessary working conditions, and so all our staff are happy with them. All overtime is paid and on time. We don’t have outstanding overtime," the airline said.

A Fin24 user also alleges that for the payment of salaries, initially, no-one was registered with the SA Revenue Service (SARS) by the company for PAYE and employees had to submit an invoice in order to get paid.

This allegation is also denied by Skywise. The airline told Fin24 that from the start all employees were paying tax.

"We have not had any incidents where members of staff have had to submit invoices to get a salary or overtime payment and all our employee records are with the Department of Labour," the airline stated in response.

READ: Skywise's open letter to Jacob Zuma

A former employee also alleges that there were other incidents of Skywise not paying its suppliers, forcing some to take legal action in order to get paid.

"We meet our obligations with suppliers and where we face difficulties, we negotiate terms of payment suitable to our financial situation," stated Skywise in response.

Another former employee told Fin24 that there has been a high staff turnover at Skywise with "about half" of the staff deciding to leave within the first five months of operations.

To this Skywise has responded that, "like in any company, employees are free to move away for various reasons". The airline claims that it has retained 95% of its employees since the start.
 
By late afternoon on Thursday, Skywise flights were still suspended.

ALSO READ: Day 2 of Skywise grounding

Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on Fin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.

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