No news is bad news for Air Malta

“In a small airline such as Air Malta, pilots’ costs are a disproportionate part of its costs, an almost inflexible segment whatever the amount of passengers carried and also of flights operated ”

As we report on the news pages, an informal meeting between Air Malta and the pilots’ association yesterday did not lead to any new development in the industrial issue between them.

The management of the airline is meanwhile engaged in negotiations with potential purchaser Alitalia – Etihad.

At the same time it is engaged in an everlasting internal battle on its own with costs and accounts trying to stem the losses and move to a small profit – a daunting task whichever one looks at it.

All these impossible tasks would sap the strength of any person so it comes as no surprise that the CEO is moving to pastures new.

On top of all this comes this industrial issue with the pilots.

In a small airline such as Air Malta, pilots’ costs are a disproportionate part of its costs, an almost inflexible segment whatever the amount of passengers carried and also of flights operated.

The pilots have argued, not without reason, that when the airline cut the number of planes it operates, it also cut the number of flights it operates and hence they lost part of the overall package they used to get. So if they were working less hours, that is not their fault.

At the same time, as this paper reported last week, they keep getting recruitment approaches from reputable airlines (last week’s was from easyJet, but it could be from any airline) with salary packages and conditions of work far superior to what Air Malta can offer.

So the pilots, as against any other category of Air Malta employees, enter any negotiations on the collective agreement with an approach that is far more aggressive than any approach by any other category.

Whether the pilots will ultimately strike or not is not for us to foretell but all this scaremongering undoubtedly affects the morale of all those employed by the airline and all those affected by it.

On the other hand, the airline has relativities to consider and any amelioration of the pilots’ packages will bring additional pressure from the other categories, starting with the cabin crew and the engineers.

You speak to the airline people and the way they speak about the pilots is almost to verge on calling them the airline’s most difficult problem and the cause of its losses (which is unfair, considering everything).

The years of restructuring, begun under the PN administration, turned the airline into, in the words of a former high official, “a virtual airline” with big offices and empty rooms. The situation may have changed somewhat with the addition of new staff and, for all the vibe and vituperation against the former CEO, some of the new staff recruited later seems to have quite hefty packages.

The negotiations regarding the sale of a quota of the airline have brought to light a number of questions: • Will the airline become a feeder airline of Alitalia, rather than a full airline operating its own routes as before? • Will the airline have to downsize its operation further, eg by outsourcing its front desk and its check-in counter operation, or its airside operation? • In short, will the airline be turned into a pale shadow of what it used to be? There is no time left and the past months have been mainly wasted time before the real negotiations could begin. Or at least that is our impression, in the absence of more information.

According to what was said in Court a few days ago, there is an October deadline after which, if no deal has been reached by then, the situation for the airline will get really dramatic.