FlySafair vs The Citizen

Complaint 32384                                                                                      

Ruling by the Press Ombud

Date of article:                    12 November 2025

Headline of publication:   “Union slams FlySafair for ‘bad faith’ talks”

Author:                                  Hein Kaiser

1. FlySafair complains about an article published online by The Citizen. Kirby Gordon (“Gordon”), Chief Marketing Officer, made representations on behalf of the airline and Trevor Stevens, Editor of the publication, responded.

Background

2. Industrial action at FlySafair made news towards the end of the year and in the run-up to the busy holiday season.
3. The article in question centres around the views of the South African Cabin Crew and Alliances union (Sacca), one of the trade unions involved. Sacca accused FlySafair of “disingenuous motives and negotiating tactics” amidst the lock-out by FlySafair of certain cabin crew.
4. More particularly, Sacca made the following broad allegations against FlySafair:

• That it “reneged on agreements”. This allegation is contained in the sub-headline and in the body of the article.
• The carrier engaged in “hostile negotiations”.
• FlySafair “ignored labour laws that protect employees”.
• That “the company’s international owners clearly don’t care much about local staff”.

5. The last sentence of the article reflected the following: “FlySafair did not respond to questions before publication.”

The complaint

6. FlySafair complains, in summary, about allegedly not being afforded a fair opportunity to respond prior to publication, alleged unbalanced reporting, and a perception of conflict of interest -on the part of the journalist in the question.
7. The complaint engages the following clauses of the Press Code:

• Clause 1.8. mandating the media to treat subjects of critical reportage fairly through sufficient opportunity to respond prior to publication.
• Clause 1.2. requiring contextualised and balanced reporting.
• Clause 2.2. dealing with, inter alia, conflict of interests.

Right of reply

8. Clause 1.8. of the Press Code reads:

“(The media shall) seek, if practicable, the views of the subject of critical reportage in advance of publication, except when they might be prevented from reporting, or evidence destroyed, or sources intimidated. Such a subject should be afforded reasonable time to respond; if unable to obtain comment, this shall be stated.”

9. A right of reply is a cornerstone of ethical journalism. It is one of the clauses in the Press Code dealt with most frequently by this office.
10. In Moti vs amaBhungane (30 September 2022), it was decided that the Press Code demands an effective right of reply, which encompasses three requirements:

• The enquiry to the subject of critical reportage must be effective in respect of whether it reaches the recipient, whether “reasonable time” is given to respond, and whether the right person has been contacted.
• The contents of the enquiry must be effective. The person being questioned must at least know what he or she is to respond to, and every critical allegation to be published is put to the subject of critical reportage. (Ann Parboo vs Newcastle Advertiser, 2 October 2012.)
• An effective right of reply further means that the response must be fairly reflected in the article, albeit not necessarily verbatim. (Siyaya TV v amaBhungane, 7 February 2023.)

11. In this matter, the publication forwarded five questions to FlySafair on 11 November 2025 at 12:20pm, in which the journalist noted that the piece would be submitted at 15:30 the same day.
12. Gordon says it was unreasonable to afford FlySafair three hours to respond, “despite the issues raised being non-urgent and based on claims dating back several days”. This notwithstanding the article then explicitly stated FlySafair “did not respond before publication, implying non-cooperation and damaging the company’s reputation.”
13. Said Stevens: “If the claims were several days old, then the airline would have been aware of them and would have been able to respond”. Moreover, nothing prevented FlySafair “from contacting the journalist to request additional time” as frequently occurs. Finally, Stevens says “on multiple previous occasions in the past, the airline has refused to comment.”
14. The last comment should be dealt with summarily: it is simply no excuse. While I appreciate it can be frustrating to deal with un-cooperative spokespeople (if FlySafair has, in fact, been uncooperative in the past, on which I make no finding), it can never absolve a publication of its ethical duties.
15. The Press Codes requires “reasonable time”. What would constitute a “reasonable time” is fact-dependent and would be influenced by several factors, including:

• The news cycle of the particular platform. A website publishes news 24/7 while a weekly publication goes to print only every few days.
• The urgency of the content. Breaking news naturally means more immediate publication requirements than investigations or non-breaking news.
• The operational realities of the person required to comment. Just as it is a relevant factor to consider the requirements of the publications, the same consideration needs to apply to the subject of critical reportage. For example, an individual who can speak on their own behalf may answer much faster than a spokesperson for a large corporate entity or governmental body where the spokesperson is dependent on others for information or need to obtain approvals for responses.
• The seriousness of the allegations. The more damaging the allegations the more care ought to be taken in affording a fair opportunity to respond.
• The content of the enquiry. A single question may require only minutes to respond, whereas an enquiry spanning several pages requires far more time. If information would have to be verified, or is complex, these would all add to the threshold of what is “reasonable”.

16. The five questions posed to FlySafair were quite general. For example, the publication asked: “SACCA alleges that FlySafair changed the terms of the wage and working condition agreement after it was accepted. Why?” It is not entirely clear whether FlySafair would immediately know what is referred to and I can imagine that an entity would have to perform verifications before answering such a question.
17. At least one question is somewhat complex. The Citizen enquired about the “true operational impact” of the industrial action; i.e. exactly how many flights were “affected by the lockout”. This would require some co-ordination and investigation within FlySafair to collate such fast-changing information.
18. Other questions appear, at least to an uninformed outsider, to be much more straight-forward: Why did the company approach the CCMA? FlySafair would have articulated an answer to such question previously.
19. I agree with Stevens’ argument that it should not be difficult or time-consuming regarding information readily at hand. It is, however, not clear that the information requested was all at hand for an extended period. On the other hand, it can be reasonably accepted that a company in the midst of industrial action would have procedures in place to collate such information as quickly as possible in order to inform their passengers and to keep on high alert for operational challenges.
20. All-in-all, considering the factors set out above, I would have been inclined to afford the publication the benefit of the (not insignificant) doubt that the three-hour deadline was “reasonable time”.
21. However, FlySafair is rightly aggrieved by the reflection in the article that FlySafair did not respond to enquiries.
22. Clause 1.8. of the Press Code requires journalists to state where it has not been possible to obtain comment. This requirement implies a requirement to include context, especially if there is a particular reason why someone cannot respond, such as being overseas at present, or being hospitalized. The same principle applies if a publication knows it has only given the person three hours to respond.
23. There is a vast difference in the perception of an ordinary reader when they read that someone did not immediately respond to breaking news (and that their response will be added as soon as it becomes available) versus a simple statement that they did not respond. The latter implies that the person was afforded a clear-cut fair opportunity to do so and willingly chose not to.
24. For these reasons, the publication breached clause 1.8. by not affording FlySafair an effective right or reply.

Balance

25. Clause 1.2. of the Press Code reads:

“(The media shall) present news in context and in a balanced manner, without any intentional or negligent departure from the facts whether by distortion, exaggeration or misrepresentation, material omissions, or summarisation.”

26. The article in question details in the introductory paragraph that the lock-out of cabin crew entered its second seven-day period by the time the article was published. The opinions and allegations of Sacca reported on were not expressed in a vacuum.
27. Here the publication’s plausible submission above that the issues have been playing out for a protracted period in the public domain becomes a double-edged sword.

28. FlySafair says it had issued numerous public statements on the same issues and the omission thereof skewed the balance of the piece.

29. The Citizen rejects this, saying it would not have been necessary to contact FlySafair at all if everything was contained in FlySafair’s earlier statements.
30. Neither party went into detail about what allegations were “new” or not. What is, however, apparent, is that the outlines of the stances of the different players in the conflict (i.e. the unions and FlySafair) have been in the public domain.
31. What is striking about the article in question is that FlySafair’s perspective on the protracted industrial action is not reflected in any way whatsoever. There is not a single paragraph contextualizing the employer’s reason for the lock-out. For that matter, there is also not even a hyperlink to any previous articles that may or may not exist containing the broad opposing views of the parties.
32. A publication is not entitled to ignore the version of a subject of critical reportage – even if that version was not given to the publication in question directly – if such version would provide necessary balance and context. (Judge Rusi v City Press, 9 October 2024).
33. In the premises, the article is in breach of clause 1.2. by not affording context or balance.

Conflict of interest

34. FlySafair complains that the journalist has a reasonably perceived conflict of interest and his “failure to disclose (his) professional background” is a breach of the Press Code. The journalist, Hein Kaiser, was previously head of Corporate Affairs at Mango Airlines and a communication executive at Fastjet Airlines, “both direct competitors of FlySafair”.
35. Stevens denies impropriety from the journalist. He says a journalist is not expected to disclose their entire CV, even though Kaiser’s work at Mango Airlines is widely known. Moreover, the journalist left Mango in 2017 and Fastjet did not compete against FlySafair when he worked there.
36. I agree that there is nothing improper in the journalist working as such and covering the field of aviation. If anything, his knowledge of the industry is to the advantage of the publication and its readers. There is no reasonable perception of a conflict of interest.
37. Gordon also complains about the “tone and framing” of the questions posed by the journalist to FlySafair. From the publication’s response, it appears that there may be history of friction between individuals. As uncomfortable as that may be, it is not an unusual occurrence in any industry to be forced to deal with personal differences. If The Citizen oversteps, FlySafair has recourse as shown above.
38. The complaint about any potential conflict of interest and non-declaration of interests is dismissed.

Sanction

39. The Citizen is directed to apologise to FlySafair for not affording it an effective right of reply and for omitting context to the article.
40. Such apology should contain a link to the full ruling and the original article.
41. The original article is to be updated by:

• Reflecting the apology;
• Publishing a reasonable right of reply of appropriate length to the issues raised in the article, if they so wish.

42. The wording of the apology shall be approved by the Ombud prior to publication. Should there be any dispute about the length of the right to reply to be included, the parties may submit it to the Ombud for a determination.

Herman Scholtz

Press Ombud

16 January 2026

Appeal

The Complaints Procedure lays down that within seven working days of receipt of this decision, either party may apply for leave to appeal to the Chairperson of the SA Press Appeals Panel, Judge Bernard Ngoepe, fully setting out the grounds of appeal. He can be contacted at Khanyim@ombudsman.org.za.