Updated: Pilots postpone action at Air Malta after 'constructive negotiations'

The Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) said this afternoon (2:07pm) "constructive negotiations" with Air Malta’s top management and "also adverse weather conditions" had forced it to postpone a planned press conference.

The pilots were expected to be decked in full uniform, outside the Air Malta offices, to protest the national airline’s recall of pilots assigned on temporary placements with other airlines.

MaltaToday understands Air Malta had encouraged its pilots they could apply for temporary placements with the Abu Dhabi airline Etihad, and Libya’s Afriqiyah Airways, as winter business was being forecasted to be low.

The measure was a cost-cutting exercise to relieve the national airline of some labour costs, while ensuring that the pilots would only be temporarily away from their normal duties.

Sources said Air Malta had recalled their pilots, some of whom may have already committed themselves with the two airlines.

The ALPA press conference today is unprecedented for pilots, who have already complained with Air Malta of having submitted to salary cuts for the past three years.

Pilots who spoke to MaltaToday earlier this year had said the last batch of Air Malta trainee pilots had been given definite contracts that will expire by the end of 2010. “That’s a sign of how bad the situation is,” one pilot said – a fact that Air Malta has not disputed in its statement.

Air Malta pilots, who earn between €72,000 and €120,000,already accepted salary cuts back in 2004, which Air Malta says is money paid back to the company to aid its restructuring.

The national airline has refuted reports that pilots were warned by new chairman Sonny Portelli that Air Malta needed “government subventions”.

But it is well known that the government is looking into ways of circumventing – legally – the EU’s strict rules on state subsidies.

Air Malta had told this newspaper that the airline as looking into “a sustainable business plan that, together with the recapitalisation of the company, would take the airline forward in these very challenging times. A very important element in the plan consists of a number of cost cutting measures.”