Air Malta said this evening that it will be calling on ALPA - the Airline Pilots Association - to agree to appoint an independent external inquiry into reports how ALPA President Dominic Azzopardi on July 27 caused a 30-minute delay in a Milan-Malta flight when he arrived late with his family and gave instructions for check-in to be reopened and for the passengers' air bridge to be reattached so that they could make it to the flight.
The incident was revealed by The Sunday Times yesterday. http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120819/local/Probe-over-flight-delay-caused-by-pilots-chief.433370
Air Malta said it had followed up the report and it could confirm that it had categorical documented evidence, including third party electronic data, to ascertain the facts.
The evidence, gathered from the aircraft's communication systems, computer logs at check-in and ground handling partners in Milan, confirmed the comments and complaints received from passengers on board the flight.
"Mr Dominic Azzopardi and his family were travelling on rebated staff tickets.
Air Malta is taking the matter very seriously. The airline will not accept justifications that these things happened in the past and cannot allow such delays that affect its on-time departure and arrival performance," the airline said.
It said it was calling for an independent enquiry due to the sensitivity of the issue.
"The actions the airline can take will depend on the inquiry's findings," it added.
"First of all it will take more than such an article to discredit ALPA’s president and we find the timing of this article highly suspicious. This especially, after the information has been “leaked” right after ALPA registered an industrial dispute with the company on Friday," the union said.
The union said this kind of attitude shown by the airline only served to provoke, and it shed light on the 'dirty tactics' that the company’s higher management was resorting to in an attempt to discredit theu nion.