Pilots’ association hits out at Air Malta for ‘ignoring’ employees

ALPA-Malta has expressed its disappointment over Air Malta’s failure to discuss plan with any of its employee representatives.

The pilots’ association was referring to a recent press statement issued by Air Malta following a presentation to the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) in which reference to the airline's "fleet renewal plan" was made.

“ALPA-Malta is disappointed that such plans were never discussed, nor divulged, with any employee representatives, including ALPA-Malta. Unfortunately, while Air Malta presented its plans and so called ‘workings’ to third parties, it failed to do the same to its own employees and their representatives. Needless to say, this is of concern to all Air Malta employees,” the association said.

It said that while it agreed with finding possible ways of reducing costs through higher aircraft utilisation, it was never shown how this would achieved and, as such, ALPA was concerned whether the whole plan is even doable.

“Air Malta implied that a reduction in the number of aircraft will not result in a reduction of capacity or routes. This would have inevitably required an in-depth analysis of the current and future route structure.

“As an example, operating with a reduced number of aircraft while keeping the current route structure will obviously require a change in scheduled flight times.”

It asked whether factors such as current airport slot times as well as airport operating hours restrictions taken into consideration. “To date no such analysis was presented to ALPA-Malta, which is why we are highly concerned whether the plan is achievable.”

ALPA-Malta added it was also worrying that, after years of restructuring plans and management changes, including the employment of various foreign consultants, the best plan Air Malta could come up with was a reduction in fleet numbers.

“This plan was already on the table way back in 2010 and was immediately shot down by most stakeholders involved.”