Updated | Air Malta ‘doing all that is possible to operate normal schedule’

Updated with ALPA statement

Air Malta will be doing everything possible to operate a normal schedule today, saying indications are that yesterday's situation will return to normal as pilots reporting fit to fly.

"At present all flights are operating according to schedule and further updates will be provided later in the day as the need arises," the airline said after some 20 pilots called in sick yesterday, grounding flights and delaying others.

Today the ALPA pilots' union contradicted the airline's claims, saying that 16 pilots were sick, while five were out on long sickness.

 A jam-packed departures lounge at the Malta International Airport yesterday was the site of distraught and confused tourists and Maltese passengers, looking lost and finding solace in the airport's coffee shop.

They complained that the airport's schedule monitors, the Air Malta desk and MIA were giving them conflicting information about when their flights would depart and that they felt "let down" by the way the airline had dealt with their situation.

Air Malta cancelled two scheduled flights to and from Benghazi, as well as flights to Milan and Newcastle, after 20 pilots - half of the airline's pilot complement for the day - called in sick. Flights to and from Tel Aviv, Paris-Orly, Cardiff, Budapest, Frankfurt, Vienna and Catania were also seriously delayed.

The mishap - dubbed an unofficial strike by Air Malta sources and one vocal critic, the Malta Employers' Association - affected flight plans for at least 2,018 passengers and will cost the airline some €400,000 in delay compensation.

An airline source said that when on Monday pilots started calling in sick, it raised suspicions that it could form part of an unofficial industrial action.

But disgruntled tourists told MaltaToday that Air Malta did not give any sort of explanation about the long delays, which had affected a number of flights, particularly those to the UK.

"When we complained at the Air Malta desk, we were first told that our flight was cancelled, then that it was delayed. The monitors were showing an estimated departure time, but the staff still said it was cancelled," a Norwich woman, 48, said.

Passenger Mark Monroe and his wife were supposed to return to Newcastle after a week's stay in Malta. "The island is lovely and we enjoyed every minute of our stay until we got to the airport," he said.

"The airline informed us of the two-hour delay only after a planeload of passengers complained to the information desk, while the monitors were actually reading 'cancelled'," she said.

A group of elderly British tourists flying home to Norwich lined up their luggage by the rest of their fellow passengers inside the terminal and headed for the cafeteria.  "The airline has handled the situation in a disgusting manner," one of them said.

When they were told that the reason for the delay could have been an unofficial strike by pilots, one disgruntled tourist (who did not want to be identified) said, "It's part of travelling life to encounter strikes. But to be given a small bottle of water and told to wait is unacceptable."

In a statement, pilots' union ALPA said the sickness levels that put an alleged 20 pilots out of action "was out of its control".

"The way that pilots are being assigned to flights at such short notice is not viable and is only normal in emergency situations. The lack of pilots at Air Malta means it needs stand-by pilots, used as replacements when assigned pilots are indisposed. What is happening now is that right up to the day of the flight, there won't be enough pilots to fly the planes," ALPA said.

The union said this is the cause of some 17 less pilots which were given voluntary retirement, something that Air Malta says falls within the conditions of its restructuring programme, which specifies a maximum full-time complement of 110 pilots.

"We have our own doubts on the number of pilots who called in sick yesterday as claimed by Air Malta. The company did not even pass on any information to us. We won't let Air Malta use pilots as an excuse to cover up its management's mistakes, wastage and inefficiencies."