The pilots’ union has warned that Air Malta may experience flight delays and cancellations as a result of industrial action, a move the airline yesterday branded as shocking and irresponsible.

The Airline Pilots Association (Alpa) has ordered pilots to work under the terms of their existing collective agreement after the airline, it said, stopped talks on a new one.

The union has not asked the pilots to strike but warned that crew limitations under the current agreement are incompatible with some of the recently introduced practices.

“A shortage of crew at any one time may therefore cause flight delays as has already occurred yesterday (Wednesday) and may even lead to flight cancellations in the coming weeks,” the union said.

Alpa officially registered an industrial dispute with Air Malta on Friday. The union said a new collective agreement was two years overdue and certain conditions in the expired agreement were “inadequate in today’s circumstances”.

Air Malta reacted strongly to the measure, saying it was disappointed with the union’s action and accused it of trying to disrupt operations.

The union, it said, was acting irresponsibly and failing to see the big picture, continuing to focus instead “on what is now its own narrow self-interests”. It accused it of issuing directives despite agreeing to attend a conciliation meeting with the Director of Employment and Industrial Relations.

Air Malta said that over the past weeks it had made every effort to convince Alpa that the requests it was making, which were estimated to cost the airline around €10 million over the period of the agreement, were unsustainable and to the detriment of its members, the company and the country itself.

It was shocked by the fact that the union “has no qualms seeing the company go bankrupt if they are not given what they want”.

“To Air Malta’s management and the board of directors this is irresponsible and unprofessional behaviour and can’t be accepted,” the statement said, adding that the company had made fair and responsible offers to Alpa.

“The offers took into consideration the state of the company and what was negotiated and agreed to with the other three unions representing employees in Air Malta.”

The union not only refused every offer but changed the goal posts at every meeting, Air Malta said, stressing that the management would not let the executive committee of the union disrupt the restructuring process.

The company went over some of the union’s requests, revealing that it had asked it to accommodate pilots so they could avoid paying income tax on part of their earnings despite this being against taxation law. It also accused the union of blocking it from leasing an extra aircraft, saying the decision had cost Air Malta €2.5 million in revenues.

“Air Malta reiterates that if Alpa wants to be taken seriously it should come back to the negotiating table with a decent set of proposals in line with the current realities being faced.”

In an equally vehement reaction to the airline’s statement, the union described it as dishonest and called for the CEO’s resignation due to mismanagement.

It denied blocking the lease, saying it had always supported the airline’s leasing efforts. It said Air Malta appeared to be unable to accept wet leases because of lack of flight and cabin crew, as well as because of restructuring restrictions by the EU.

It also rejected the suggestion that it was asking for a “ridiculous” pay rise, saying it offered to take a three per cent increase only after some stability returned to the airline’s finances, in addition to arrears and a slight increase in the overtime rate.

The management was resorting to “trickery”, it said, adding it was management who had cancelled a meeting with the director of labour.

In June, the European Commission approved a government restructuring plan that will inject €130 million of state aid into the troubled carrier.

So far, the airline’s tightly structured financial programme appears to be on track. According to the latest released accounts, the airline cut its losses during the second quarter by nearly €4 million, going €1.2 million better than projected.