Twenty-one Filipino sailors and their captain flew home in time for Christmas yesterday with their wages finally settled following 16 months at sea.

The crew and their Pakistani captain had been in Maltese waters since August on-board the MV A Ladybug, a 232-metre-long vehicle carrier.

Prior to being granted access to Maltese waters they had been sailing aimlessly for months, after being abandoned by their financially stricken mother company.

The crew were demanding their outstanding wages from the mother company before being repatriated.

Their plight had made national headlines in the Philippines.

Since arriving in Maltese waters they had been assisted by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), in which the General Workers’ Union is affiliated.

GWU legal counsels Aron Mifsud Bonnici and Matthew Grech represented them in court. They successfully applied to have the ship arrested in the name of the crew in mid-August. On October 31, Mr Justice Mark Chetcuti ruled that the mother company should pay the crew €279,507.14 in overdue wages plus €14,960 for their repatriation.

That amount has now been settled and crew and captain left Malta on a flight to Dubai yesterday afternoon.

They had arrived on the island at around 11am after an arduous journey on rough seas from the MV A Ladybug to shore on a service ship.

Local ITF representative Paul Falzon said the MV A Ladybug remained in Maltese waters and a decision had not been made on its future. It is now being manned by a Chinese crew because a ship that size cannot be left unoccupied.

Mr Falzon said the GWU and Transport Malta had been very cooperative in helping the Filipino sailors and Pakistani captain during their ordeal.

He also thanked the port chaplain, the Malta-China Friendship Society, the Foreign Ministry, the Maltese Embassy in China and representative in Malta for the Philippines Kevin Attard.