Cabin crew will return to the negotiating table with Air Malta following the intervention of Economy Minister Silvio Schembri who presided over a mediatory meeting on Wednesday.

Sources said the minister intervened after the Union of Cabin Crew last week called off negotiations with the airline after it claimed the company had a change of heart on re-employing 145 fixed-term casual employees as cabin crew.

The meeting, described as “very cordial”, served as a basis for the resumption of negotiations with the airline in a bid to reach an agreement on planned redundancies.

Sources said the cabin crew union is hoping to reach a deal by the end of the month after it received yet another extension to try save jobs.

Air Malta, and the whole airline industry, faces a bleak future

The airline had proposed a mechanism whereby the flight duty hours for the full-time equivalent number of crew required for its planned operations would be split between 188 crew members who have an indefinite contract and whom the airline would retain on its books. 

Both cabin crew and pilots are in dispute with Air Malta after it gave notice last month of plans to sack most unless they agreed to a monthly salary of €1,200 until normal operations are resumed.

According to Air Malta’s post-COVID-19 plan, it will now require 62 pilots, up from the original 26 under its previous projections, and 125 cabin crew, up from the 49 it had initially planned to keep.

With travel severely curtailed due to COVID-19, Air Malta, along with the whole airline industry, faces a bleak future, with sources close to the national airline saying the doldrums could stretch up to two years.