The global airlines industry has been deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Recovery will eventually come, but no one knows when this will happen.
In the meantime, airlines have been asking their governments for assistance as they face bankruptcy.
Pilots and other staff have been laid off, and some of the major airlines have announced they may even reduce their fleet to take into account the new realities they are facing.
Air Malta has been just as affected by the pandemic as other airlines. However, some of its employees, mainly pilots, want further assurances about their job security and take-home pay while the crisis persists.
The airline believes that it has already done all it can to manage the situation. It has decided that to control the financial bleeding, it will have to make 108 of its pilots redundant after its reduced wage offer was turned down. The COVID pandemic could well prove to be the straw that will break Air Malta's back.
It would be wrong to limit analysis of the present bleak situation faced by Air Malta to simple arguments about how the pandemic affects the airline's financial dynamics.
Air Malta has entered the danger zone that could lead to its irrelevance in the European airlines' industry.
When the EU signed an Open Skies Agreement with the US more than a decade ago the airline industry was liberated from previous government interventions to support national airlines that were considered of strategic economic importance by many member states.
Before joining the EU, the Maltese government had to present a restructuring plan for Air Malta.
This plan was rehashed several times but its objectives have still not been achieved.
Despite a lack of sufficient transparency about Air Malta's financial situation, it is clear that the national airline has entered territory where its very existence is threatened.
Financial engineering has enabled the airline to cushion its losses in the last few years through smart deals relating to its Heathrow slots, which were the most valuable assets owned by the company.
But the benefits of these accounting stratagems are dwindling.
Air Malta did not start facing the dangers it now does only a few weeks ago with the onset of the pandemic.
Like some European airlines that have filed for bankruptcy in the last few years, Air Malta had its fair share of flawed business models, lack of competitiveness in an overcrowded industry, bad management decisions, too much political interference and inadequate oversight by EU regulators.
To this list of obstacles, one must add the industrial unrest caused by trade unions, especially the cabin crew and pilots’ union.
The bizarre appeal of the pilot's union president for the government to 'nationalise' the airline shows how detached some workers are from the realities that the airline industry in Europe is facing.
Many understandably see the setting up of Malta Air, as a joint venture between the government and Ryanair, as Plan B for the national airline.
Whether the EU competition authorities will consent to yet another version of a restructuring plan for Air Malta remains to be seen.
The EU is likely to allow all European airlines to get special state aid to recover from the pandemic crisis, but it will not abandon the spirit of the Open Skies Agreement and fair competition.
Sadly, this all means that Air Malta's future has never been so bleak.