Both the present minister responsible for Air Malta and his predecessor should have seen the trouble coming, Labour leader Joseph Muscat charged yesterday.

Given that the airline always had a minister responsible for it, both Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, who had Air Malta added to his portfolio in February 2010, and his predecessor, Austin Gatt, should have realised what was happening, he said.

The carrier posted a loss of €31 million in 2009 and last December the government was forced to seek EU permission to grant the airline a €52 million loan so it could keep flying, anticipating bigger losses for 2010.

However, the full extent of the airline’s problems emerged last Friday with news it would need to shed about half of its 1,200 employees to become sustainable.

Dr Muscat insisted yesterday the steering committee overseeing the carrier’s restructuring, which the Labour Party had agreed to join, was not even given an indication of this scale of job cuts, insisting committee members should not find out such things from the newspapers.

The Prime Minister had deceived airline workers through letters sent to them on the eve of the 2008 election telling them their jobs were safe, Dr Muscat added.

He referred to an e-mail sent to a worried worker at the telecoms company Go in which the Prime Minister also gave assurances there would be no redundancies, even after the company had been privatised.

“Now the company has announced it plans redundancies,” Dr Muscat said, referring to an announcement by the company last week.

He insisted the Prime Minister should explain these consistent broken promises.

The Finance Ministry accused Dr Muscat of political expediency in his criticism, saying that, having voted in favour of the loan Air Malta will be taking, he should have realised that things at the airline needed to change. “It is, therefore, baffling how at the same time he is insisting the airline should keep everything as it is,” the ministry said.