By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMASAIR pilots returned to work this morning, two days after staging a sick out leaving thousands of Christmas holiday travellers stranded.

Labour Minister Shane Gibson confirmed to The Tribune that all scheduled pilots showed up for work at 5am - however the backlog of flights is not expected to be cleared until after 7pm.

Mr Gibson said an investigation has been launched to determine whether the pilots were actually sick or if they took illegal industrial action.

"They all went back to work, so everything should be returning to normal shortly," the minister said. "There will be some sort of repercussions for their actions unless they were legitimately sick. Now, if we found out that someone coerced a group of persons to take days off, then that is a different matter.

"Bahamasair will be investigating and will pass that information on to us and we will go from there. We expect to begin negotiations with the union in the New Year but I can say for now they have all returned to work."

Bahamasair's Managing Director Henry Woods said while all Bahamasair planes are operational today and the pilots have returned to work, it will take several hours before they catch up.

"We hope by 7pm to have the backlog cleared,'" Mr Woods said. "We also have several 'wet leases' out of Florida that are assisting us with people from Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Everything will be cleared up, passengers and bags, by this evening."

"We have done several things to accommodate people. We put a lot of people in hotels who missed connections and had to pay for them to go on other carriers. We also extended vouchers in terms of future tickets.

"Most importantly, we have to ensure that this does not happen again. We cannot have a group of several persons holding people hostage, especially during our busiest time. We all know what happened; we feel as though this was unlawful industrial action and we will compile a report and send it to the minister. This will never happen again, something will be done. The public deserves better."

The sick out began on Monday afternoon and continued yesterday, leaving the airline’s domestic and international flights grounded.

On Tuesday, Captain Joseph Moxey, the president of the Bahamas Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), said his members are “not being unreasonable” in their demands. He apologised to the public for the situation but said the pilots are “stressed out and mentally drained” and it is not safe for them to fly a plane in that state.

"We have always been reasonable with the company in every regard,” he said. “The company is offering us half increments for three years when we have already given up two years which will be ‘13 and ‘14. We have given that up in full, only three years will be left in the contract and they are offering half increments at three years, which means for the entire five-year contract we would have received one and a half increment.

“That is a slap in the face. We said, we’ll give you two years, that’s not a problem, but the same what BEC got. Give us the lump sum along with the three-year increment added to the salary.”