Last hour at Air Malta
We have been here before. The massive vote by ALPA members (that is, Air Malta pilots) in favour of industrial action did not impact the airline’s efficiency yesterday.
If past performance is anything to go by, the industrial action will soon be downgraded to, for instance, delaying flights before petering out.
The government, which owns Air Malta, is acting the way all owners do when faced with industrial action by their staff. It has publicised the pay packages that pilots get at the airline, thereby stimulating an envious reaction in each one of us when we compare our meagre salaries with those of the pilots.
But this comparison is not altogether fair: the real comparison should be with the packages of pilots at other airlines because those are the packages that the Air Malta pilots stand to get if they leave Air Malta and relocate elsewhere.
Besides, the government-owner has a tendency to go for brow-beating, reinforced by the fact that besides being the owner, it is also the government of the country. What seems to have sparked this row might seem trivial to outsiders but it matters a lot to the pilots. The government recently announced the creation of a
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company which will own the slots used by Air Malta at foreign airports, leasing out the slots to Air Malta. This announcement may not have meant much to many but in effect, as has been pointed out, it means we now have a second airline, although this new airline needs to own at least one plane to get an operational licence.
Add to this, newspaper reports that the government may create a new airline if the ALPA members do not sign the collective agreement. No wonder the pilots see plots everywhere. And no wonder the strike action seems to have been triggered by a request for information from a pilot which ALPA felt should not be shared with the government.
We have been here before, if not at Air Malta itself, at many other beleaguered airlines such as Alitalia. Such airlines take strike action in their stride whereas here, a strike at Air Malta is like the end of the world.
The government is in a hurry to conclude negotiations with ALPA so as to get bank financing for its next steps in the reinvigoration of the airline. It had set the end of last year as the deadline for an agreement with ALPA. Half a month later, such an agreement is still missing.
The country understandably asks what will happen next. The pilots say that with more flying time according to the airline’s new routes they will actually be out of pocket or thereabouts. The government-owner counters that pilots with other airlines fly the additional hours it is asking the ALPA members to do, with no discomfort or damage to their lives. But then a government-owner is no Ryanair or Easyjet, despite the government’s designation of the airline as a hybrid between a low-cost and a scheduled airline.
It has also been pointed out that the hybrid designation is just a word on a paper. Air Malta’s work ethic in all employment grades is one of the lowest productivity among airlines worldwide. In a way, only the pilots will be squeezed to deliver more. The other grades got increases, not squeezes.
It is difficult to put in a word for yet more negotiations, especially when the minister was even pushed to offer increases which could have amounted to state aid but was forced back by his cabinet colleagues. But we, anyway, will do it: please negotiate again and possibly arrive at a compromise as the alternative is too terrible to consider.