Trade union, Solidarity, has described day one of its two-week strike as successful after FlySafair confirmed several of its planes have been grounded amid a wage dispute.

This despite earlier reassurances that operations would not be affected by the start of the strike.

FlySafair pilots have rejected the airline’s 5.7% wage increase offer instead of a 10% increment.

Solidarity’s deputy general-secretary, Helgard Cronje says, “Throughout last week and over the weekend, they indicated that there will be minimal impact and then last night at about 10 o’clock, we saw on their website and on some of their social media platforms that they indicated that a lot of flights are being cancelled.”

“I quickly counted more than 20 flights that are being cancelled. So I think it’s a very good indication that they aren’t able to sustain their flight schedule. And to me it seems as though they delayed it as late as possible to communicate that to the South African public.”

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