The lot of pilots
Airline pilots are required not to exceed several Flight Time Limitations (FTLs). While Air Malta mentions two particular limitations (maximum 100 flying hours per 28 days or maximum 900 flying hours per year), other equally important FTLs were left...
Airline pilots are required not to exceed several Flight Time Limitations (FTLs). While Air Malta mentions two particular limitations (maximum 100 flying hours per 28 days or maximum 900 flying hours per year), other equally important FTLs were left out.
Airline pilots are required by international law to have a 36-hour period free of any duty once every 168 hours. This means that after seven consecutive days of duty a pilot must be off duty for 36 consecutive hours.
Additionally pilots together with other employees (Industrial Employment Act) are required to have seven 24-hour periods free of duty every month.
Contractually, pilots should not normally have more than four consecutive flights but several crew are rostered with more.
The Airline Pilots Association (Alpa) maintains that, due to the current pilot shortage in Air Malta, pilots are regularly being rostered to fly in breach of these FTLs. On several occasions Alpa (Malta) had to intervene so that its members do not operate in breach of international law. This causes many roster changes which in turn require pilots to operate at short notice, thus disrupting their planned rest periods. On several occasions, not enough pilots are available to be placed on "standby" duty and this exacerbates the problem. While these breaches happen more regularly during the peak months, they also happen during the lean periods when it should be easy to plan a proper and legal roster. There are other constraints within which the roster must be planned which are regularly not met, resulting in more disruptions to pilots' schedules.
Contrary to the hasty reply of Air Malta, pilots are indeed reaching their limits after 28 pilots have suddenly left in two years and in the meantime the company is doing nothing to try and stop the brain drain. Statements made in the press by Air Malta that we are operating normally are far from factual when it is thanks to our flexibility and dedication to the company that flights have not been delayed or cancelled outright.