diff --git a/slave/buildslave/test/unit/test_commands_transfer.py b/slave/buildslave/test/unit/test_commands_transfer.py
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/slave/buildslave/test/unit/test_commands_transfer.py
+++ b/slave/buildslave/test/unit/test_commands_transfer.py
@@ -256,8 +256,8 @@ class TestSlaveDirectoryUpload(CommandTestMixin, unittest.TestCase):
         return self.test_simple('gz')
 
     # except bz2 can't operate in stream mode on py24
-    if sys.version_info <= (2,4):
-        del test_simple_bz2
+    if sys.version_info[:2] <= (2,4):
+        test_simple_bz2.skip = "bz2 stream decompression not supported on Python-2.4"
 
     # this is just a subclass of SlaveUpload, so the remaining permutations
     # are already tested
correctly - really, this time - detect Python-<I>