Pilots block Air Malta lay-offs with prohibitory injunction

A court has provisionally upheld a warrant of prohibitory injuction filed by ALPA to block the redundancies of a large portion of Air Malta's pilots.

The move comes after Air Malta made 69 pilots redundant on Friday after talks with the pilots union failed.

In a statement on Sunday, ALPA said it wanted to set the record straight in relation to claims made by high-ranking politicians and officials over the last couple of days

ALPA said that its executive committee had been approached by Air Malta to enter into discussions relating to the possibility of the Association renouncing to its rights protected by certain clauses in the Collective Agreement currently in force, including its rights relating to the clauses regulating early retirement. 

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"In this regard, it has been claimed that ALPA had demanded payment of the amount of €700,000 per pilot, amounting to the global figure of €73 million, in terms of the Early Retirement Scheme protected by the said Collective Agreement," the union said. 

"Air Malta presented its costings and, after obtaining professional advice relating to the possibility of creating  Third Pillar Pension Scheme, the Association agreed that the devalued global amount of €73 million was fair in the current circumstances. Discussions in this regard were scheduled to take off prior to the untimely and unexpected show of force displayed by the company."

ALPA said it was saddened by the "persistent bad faith displayed by the management of the company, as well as by manoeuvres meant to exert pressure on the operation of the Executive Committee." 

In this respect, the union said it found it particularly strange that the decision to terminate the employment of 69 pilots, as well as to demote a number of Captains, was communicated to its members at 11pm on 5 June. 

"This comes barely 48 hours after ALPA was assured that redundancies were no longer on the table. It is also peculiar that the sender of such letters, the Chief of Human Resources, James Genovese, has just recently been promoted to this position," it highlighted.

"The Association will continue to work hard to protect the rights, contractual and otherwise, of all its members and will not tolerate further attempts by management to undermine their conditions of employment. ALPA does not exclude the possibility of widening its membership to include other professionals, who have expressed an interest in this respect."