Air Malta aborts talks with pilots

Air Malta has aborted talks with pilots and appears to have withdrawn its social wage offer, as the national airline pushes to have four-fifths of its pilots made redundant by Tuesday.
The Association of Airline Pilots has informed the pilots that the airline’s management is pushing to bring forward the announced redundancies of 108 pilots rather than waiting for the full 30 days prescribed by law.
On Friday, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri accused the union of attempting to “hijack” Air Malta with its refusal of the wage offer.
According to Schembri, some of the pilots were privately willing to accept the €1,200 basic monthly income on offer.
However, a spokesman for the airline on Saturday implied that the offer was no longer on the table.

“ALPA has been given various opportunities to accept the company’s offer, all of which were turned down, therefore resulting in the company being forced to cut down on flight crew to a level commensurate with the current operations, which will be sustained for an indeterminable period,” he said.
He declined to go into any further details.
The union argues that the pay cut for management and other employees was slimmer than the 60 to 80%...