Air Malta pilots remained resolute on their demands for better pay during a meeting with management yesterday as they continued obeying a dress-down directive.
Pilots at the national airline have been going to work wearing no jacket and cap to protest the delay in concluding a new collective agreement.
They have threatened intensifying industrial action, including flight delays, if their demands for higher compensation are not met. The company is reluctant to give pilots what they want.
The meeting yesterday had been scheduled even before the Airline Pilots Association ordered its members to dress-down.
When contacted, Alpa president Domenic Azzopardi said he had no comment to make on the outcome of the meeting.
“I will not comment,” he reiterated, when asked whether the union would be intensifying industrial action.
He confirmed pilots were still obeying the dress-down directive and the next meeting with Air Malta is on Friday, when both sides are expected to appear in court.
Air Malta has requested that the court stop Alpa from taking industrial action, on the basis that it threatened the airline’s financial viability and risked jeopardising negotiations with Alitalia. The court provisionally upheld the injunction and the sitting was scheduled for Friday.
Sources said Alpa was digging its heels, insisting its demands be met. Pilots want an increase of 30 per cent in their basic salary and changes to a points system that will see them earn more in monthly bonuses.
The airline’s wage bill on pilots alone tots up to €11 million and the requests will increase this by a further €6 million.
The demands would cripple the airline, which was expected to register a €4 million loss in the financial year that ended last March.
Air Malta has to return to profitability in March, at the end of a five-year EU-imposed restructuring exercise.
The government wants to sell 49 per cent of the airline to Alitalia, which is itself half-owned by Etihad of the United Arab Emirates. Talks with Alitalia are ongoing and until a business plan is drafted – expected by the end of July – Air Malta has been reluctant to start negotiations with the four unions over expired collective agreements.
Alitalia is being viewed as a strategic investor and the government believes this is the way forward to ensure the Air Malta’s long-term sustainability.
Meanwhile, FORUM, a trade union federation, accused the company of trying to silence Alpa through the court injunction. FORUM wrote to the Prime Minister about its concerns, describing the court action as “an affront to democracy” and “dangerous”. The federation called on the Prime Minister to stop the company from pursuing court action.