JOHANNESBURG - As FlySafair battles through its second week of a pilot strike, aviation experts warn that the low-cost carrier is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The airline is running on a reduced flight schedule amid a pilots' protest over wage disputes and working schedules.
Both Trade Union Solidarity, which represents the pilots and FlySafair have been unable to land an agreement.
READ | FlySafair pilot strike | Solidarity rejects airline's offer
Aviation expert, Phuthego Mojapele, says he doesn’t believe the airline will raise flight prices to meet the pilots' demands for higher salaries.
He says if it does, FlySafair would strip away its own identity of being a low-cost airline - a model that helped it to maintain its success.
"For Flysafair to survive in the market, it must keep its prices as low as possible. You cannot charge [competitor's price] if you are Flysafair because then consumers will have no reason to come to you as they could choose the [competitor]. Given the benefits they have, including free bags, free meals and priority boarding [some of which are not available within Flysafair."
Mojapele warns that should the airline wish to take that route; it will be a 'slow death'.
For years, FlySafair has enjoyed a strong hold in the local market.
But Mojapele argues that the airline’s expansion and additions of new routes and aircraft without hiring more pilots, has sparked uneasiness among crews which has been brewing since last year.
The airline proposed a joint roster committee, but trade union Solidarity says that's not the right approach.
The union says the airline's proposal came with conditions that pilots simply can't accept, including giving up their right to protest.
'FlySafair wanted us to accept or agree not to ever strike again about the roster. And, technically, that's not even legal. '
'I mean, we can't sign away our members' right to go on a strike. It's a constitutionally protected right, but that is how far they go, you know, and that's what their expectations are now, unrealistic it is, ' Solidarity’s Deputy General-Secretary, Helgard Cronje, says.
Cronje argues that pilots want the airline to make promises in writing, but management refuses because then they’d be held accountable.
'They want absolute freedom to determine the roster and the schedule, and that is exactly what our pilots need protection against, ' he says.
Meanwhile, the airline argues that the workable solution it offered was rejected.
FlySafair Chief Marketing Officer, Kirby Gordon, says that while workers want these roster rules to be cast in stone as part of their negotiations, they may be problematic, especially operationally.