Air Malta’s has almost twice as many employees per aircraft as some comparable airlines, an exercise undertaken by the Times of Malta has shown.

The national airline will have 143 employees per plane this winter, when it intends to reduced its fleet to seven aircraft.

Croatia Airlines, which operates 12 aircraft, has an average of 89 workers while Austrian Airlines with 80 aircraft has an employee-per-plane average of 75. Beleaguered Italian airline Alitalia has 140 employees per aircraft.

Last week, Air Malta announced plans to further reduce its fleet to seven aircraft in winter and eight in summer, though the plans were not accompanied by a planned reduction in staff numbers. Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis insisted that there were no plans to reduce the workforce.

But aviation experts told the Times of Malta that while higher utilisation of the airline’s planes may make sense, staff cuts had to accompany this decision if the company was to survive in the long-term.

A former top executive at Air Malta said: “With just seven planes it is logical that the company will need fewer pilots, cabin crew and engineers. The additional problems are the fixed costs at head office, where the number of employees is far too high,” he said.

According to a retired Air Malta pilot, the airline’s wage bill is still on the top end of the scale when compared with airlines of a similar size.

“This will continue to drag the airline down if painful but necessary decisions are postponed further,” he said.

The only airline which has comparable staff numbers is Alitalia, which had to be privatised following the failure of State aid measures.

Compared with airlines like Ryanair, Easyjet and Vueling, Air Malta’s staff to aircraft ratio remains bloated. While with seven aircraft, Air Malta will have around 143 employees per aircraft, Vueling will employ 19, Ryanair, 30, Wizz Air, 35, and Easyjet, 44.

Air Malta’s staff figures are also high when compared with legacy airlines even though some of them operate much larger fleets.

Airlines comparable to Air Malta in terms of size – like Croatia Airlines, Adria Air of Slovenia and Luxair of Luxembourg – have an employee per aircraft ratio of between 51 and 120.

Larger airlines, some of which operate a global network, are also more efficient.

With just seven planes it is logical that the company will need fewer pilots, cabin crew and engineers

Turkish Airlines, the fourth largest carrier in the world, currently employs 65 employees per aircraft, less than half Air Malta’s.

When it announced its fleet reduction last week, Air Malta compared its aircraft utilisation with those of Ryanair and Easyjet. While Air Malta is currently utilising its 10 planes for just 12 hours a day at peak, the two competing low-cost carriers are utilising their aircraft for some 16 hours a day.

Air Malta is now planning to use its seven remaining planes more by increasing their utilisation to 14 hours a day. The move aims to continue to slash operating costs by some €8 million a year.

According to the latest annual report, Air Malta last year spent €39 million in wages and salaries, including social security costs, down from €49.5 million at the start of the five-year restructuring programme in 2011. The number of employees has also been reduced by 419 since the start of the restructuring plan.

After fuel costs, wages and salaries are the second highest operational cost item for the national airline.

Air Malta has until March to return to profitability. From then onwards, it cannot receive any form of State aid under EU rules.

Questions were sent to Air Malta yesterday afternoon but no reply had yet been received before going to print.

¹ Employees per aircraft. ² Winter schedule. ³ According to Air Malta annual report 2014.

ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com