Chamber of Commerce held no talks of redundancy in Air Malta with government

Chamber of Commerce President Anton Borg said that there were no talks so far between the Chamber and the government on possible redundancy at Air Malta.

Speaking to The Malta Independent, Mr Borg said that so far, the government has not informed the chamber with possible reduction in the employees working at Air Malta. He said that redundancy or not, the company needs complete restructuring to be saved.

“Some of our organisations’ members with Chamber, although not direct members of the national airline, will be affected by whatever decisions are taken on viability of Air Malta. We and these interested parties are concerned and they need clarification on the future of Air Malta. It’s high time that concrete decisions are taken.”

Mr Borg was speaking after a meeting that Chamber of Commerce held with the leader of the Opposition, Simon Busuttil held in Parliament discussing the future of Air Malta.

His reaction comes only a few weeks after the government had to openly declare that the negotiations with potential strategic partner Alitalia, had failed.

Last week, The Malta Independent on Sunday revealed that Malta’s ailing national airline is preparing its final restructuring programme to present to the European Commission in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the airline from liquidation.

Sources within the government had confirmed with this newspaper that the government is seeking approval from the EU to be able to issue early retirement schemes to a sizable number of its workforce.

Air Malta has been conducting studies and has presented the government with a detailed report, of which the human resources chapter is the most telling.

Sources that have seen the report told this newsroom that the airline needs to cut down on its number of pilots and cabin crewmembers if it wants to have a fighting chance in the competitive airline business dominated by Ryanair and other airlines with similarly lean human resources models.

“We currently have 35 pilots who are grounded in offices, instead of flying aircraft,” a source said. “We also need to lose some cabin crew,” The Malta Independent on Sunday was told.

Anton Borg said that the structure as it is so far will make it difficult to have a viable business model. “The most important thing is that we don’t keep on dragging our feet and think of a solution now.”