Updated: Air Malta says industrial action will delay flights

(Adds trade union's reaction)

Air Malta today accused the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) of being 'totally unreasonable' after the union issued directives which the airline said would delay Air Malta flights by 30 minutes.

Air Malta said the directives were issued following the union's disagreement with new crew rostering system software.

"This action is totally unreasonable, it is causing unnecessary inconveniences to passengers, and clearly shows ALPA’s intentions to inhibit progress and efficiency within the airline," Air Malta said.

It insisted that the system has been extensively tested for a year and was running correctly. This, the airline said, was a state of the art system manufactured by one of the most reputable airline software manufacturers and used by over 80 airlines worldwide.

Air Malta said it would refer the dispute to Compulsory Private Conciliation as stipulated by the current collective agreement.

In a reaction, Captain James Fenech, ALPA president, said in a statement that several bugs in the new system have been brought to the attention of Air Malta. Some had been rectified but others remained.

"What Air Malta considers as a "state of the art" system does not even allow a pilot to see where his contractual and legal Off days are. He is not even able to print his roster as attempting to do so responds with a "fatal error" on the system.

"The new format is not user friendly and it is proving difficult to check if legal and contractual flight time limitations are adhered to. Air Malta is contractually bound to issue an online roster which must include certain data . This data is not all being shown in the new roster system," the ALPA president said.

He stressed that ALPA is not trying to inhibit progress.

"On the contrary, even though no consultation or discussions took place prior to Air Malta's overnight implementation of the new system, ALPA has already shown Air Malta some areas where the new system does not work correctly. ALPA finds it hard to believe that Air Malta claims the software was extensively tested for over a year when ALPA noted several obvious bugs within a matter of minutes."

He added that ALPA had no problem trying out a new roster system, but until such time that the new system worked in a format that was satisfactory to both sides, pilots still had to use the previous tried and tested format of online roster in parallel with the new system.