The pilots’ union has obtained a temporary warrant of prohibitory injunction to stop Air Malta and the government from proceeding with plans to lay off 69 pilots.
The court action, filed on Sunday, was upheld by Mr Justice Toni Abela until the matter is heard in court. A sitting will be held on June 15.
The airline late on Friday said it had sacked the pilots after talks with the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) failed. It said the union had insisted on a €73 million early retirement pay-out.
The pilots’ union said that layoffs came as a “complete surprise” and that the airline had used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to do away with the current conditions of employment.
ALPA said it had been asked by Air Malta to sell out certain clauses in the collective agreement and presented various costings. After obtaining professional advice from Third Pillar Pension scheme professionals, the devalued figure of €73 million was found to be acceptable to the union. “ALPA never approached Air Malta to buy out this clause, nor did the association ever force Air Malta to buy it out,” the association said.
Referring to comments by Prime Minister Robert Abela earlier on Sunday, ALPA said it agreed with Abela’s assertions that pilots’ salaries are well deserved and place Air Malta on a stable footing. Similar remarks were also made by Minister for the Economy, Silvio Schembri after the management’s attempts to force pilots to accept €1,200 a month for the foreseeable future.
“The association remains very disappointed with managements' bad faith negotiating. Barely 48 hours after promising ALPA in three successive meetings that no redundancies were on the table, Air Malta's newly-promoted Chief of Human Resources, James Genovese, unorthodoxly sent out termination letters at 11pm,” ALPA said in a statement on Sunday.
The association vowed to continue working hard to protect the rights "contractual and otherwise" of all its members "and will not tolerate further attempts by management to undermine their conditions of employment.
It also said it was considering widening its membership to include other professionals who expressed an interest to join ALPA.