The airline pilots association (Alpa) has expressed disappointment that Air Malta’s fleet maximisation plans, presented to the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association a few days ago, were never discussed with divulged to any employee representatives, including ALPA.

“Unfortunately, while Air Malta presented its plans and so called workings to third parties, it failed to do the same to its own employees and their representatives. Needless to say, this is of concern to all Air Malta employees.”

Alpa said that while it agreed with finding possible ways to reduce costs through higher aircraft utilisation, it was never shown how this would be achieved and as such it was concerned whether the whole plan was doable.

“Air Malta implied that a reduction in the number of aircraft will not result in a reduction of capacity or routes. This would have inevitably required an in-depth analysis of the current and future route structure.

"As an example, operating with a reduced number of aircraft while keeping the current route structure will obviously require a change in scheduled flight times. Were factors such as current airport slot times as well as airport operating hours restrictions taken into consideration?

"To date no such analysis was presented to Alpa, which is why we are highly concerned whether the plan is achievable,” the association said.

It said it was also worrying that, after years of restructuring plans and management changes, including the employment of various foreign consultants, the best plan Air Malta could come up with was a reduction in fleet numbers; a plan which was already on the table in 2010 when it was shot down by most of the stakeholders involved.