Air Malta workers will be demanding answers about their future during a meeting with the company’s top management today.

The employees know that half of them will lose their job but they do not know who will be made redundant, an issue they hope will be clarified during the meeting.

The meeting, taking place at the Dolmen Hotel in Qawra, is open to all of the airline’s 1,300 employees. It is the first of its kind since the Air Malta crisis erupted last year. It will also be the first time the recently appointed chief executive officer Peter Davies and chairman Louis Farrugia will face the workers.

Employees who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Times of the “indecision that is killing them” as unions are in the dark over the contents of the final restructuring proposal that the government submitted to the EU Commission last month.

Some 600 workers are expected to lose their job as the airline struggles to remain viable after registering hefty losses over the past few years.

“If the government intends issuing early retirement or voluntary redundancy schemes it should go ahead and announce them because it is unfair on employees when they cannot plan their own future,” an office worker who has been employed with the airline for more than a decade said.

The feedback came just a day after the General Workers’ Union warned that unless the government declared that it will offer alternative employment as an option to redundant workers who still wanted to work it would declare an industrial dispute at Air Malta.

The union gave the government until June 30 to make a formal announcement but in a brief statement the Finance Ministry only said that workers will be offered different options so that any decision taken will “have the least social impact”.

The Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin yesterday also insisted the government offer alternative employment to Air Malta employees as it did in the past when restructuring state-owned companies.

However, the government’s curt reaction to the GWU’s threat does little to put workers’ minds at rest.

“There is too much uncertainty and the indecision creates fear and frustration,” the employee said, adding that workers were suspicious the eventual plan would be to privatise Air Malta.

The same feelings were expressed by a member of the airline’s cabin crew, who insisted that the uncertainty was made worse by the length of time employees were left in this state.

“People are worried because their jobs are on the line without knowing when decisions will be taken and who will be affected,” he said.

Pilots are no less worried about the situation even though 20 of them are on unpaid leave from the airline and working abroad.

Echoing the official statement issued by the Pilots’ Union a couple of months ago, a pilot told The Times that Air Malta’s biggest problems were the undercharging for cargo transport, the hefty yearly payment to Malta International Airport and the contracts awarded to suppliers.

“Workers will be willing to make sacrifices but the most the company can save from redundancies is €10 million. The rest of the cost savings will have to come by renegotiating the airline’s contracts. It does not make sense for Air Malta to pay €23 million to Malta International Airport when it is the home carrier bringing the highest volumes of passengers,” he said.

The new chief executive has said Air Malta will discuss existing obligations with its suppliers but despite the goodwill the pilot believes that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

“I hope that what they are saying is not just lip service,” he remarked cynically.

Jobs under the axe

Air Malta will be shedding some 600 employees from a work force of around 1,300 although the final details of the plan submitted to Brussels remain unknown even to the unions.

Sources have told The Times that the first draft of the plan drawn up by Ernst & Young had identified ground handling and head office operations as the two biggest areas for job cuts.

Figures made public by the GWU in February spoke of job cuts ranging between 200 and 230 in ground handling, which equates to half the section’s employees and between 200 and 240 redundancies among office workers from a current complement of just over 300.

Sources said that Ernst & Young had also suggested the airline shed some 57 pilots from a current complement of 147.

However, the number of pilots and cabin crew depended on the number of aircraft the company would keep and whether they will be maximised to the full.

It is understood that the company wants to keep 10 aircraft from 11 although Brussels may force it to reduce the number to eight.

Meanwhile, the pilots’ union will be holding an extraordinary general conference on July 5 to discuss the company’s future.