A total of 351 former Air Malta workers opted to take the Early Retirement Scheme or the Voluntary Redundancy Scheme and have been awarded a sum of money, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana told parliament on Monday.

Among them were 204 office administration and management workers, 137 ‘industrial’ workers and 10 engineers.

Caruana was replying to a question by PN MP Ivan Bartolo who also asked for the total amount disbursed. The finance minister did not reply to that question.

Last year, Air Malta shed a record number of workers in a last-minute attempt to cut costs to save the struggling airline. 

Those workers who opted for an early or voluntary retirement scheme were offered sums of between €40,000 and €300,000.

Air Malta staff aged 50 and over were eligible to the early retirement scheme if they had served 20 years and over, to be paid two-thirds of their total take-home pay, capped at a maximum €300,000.

Last month, Times of Malta reported that several Air Malta workers who had opted to take the schemes and left the airline in November are still “unexplainably registered” with Jobsplus as employees.