The General Workers Union has issued directives to Air Malta workers, after the airline ignored the union’s calls to start negotiating a new collective agreement.

Sources told Times of Malta that the GWU on Friday instructed Air Malta workers to follow several administrative measures, ranging from not communicating with airline management to not doing any unpaid extra work.

The union is understood to have moved ahead with the directives after waiting several weeks for the airline to reply to its request to start negotiating a new deal for workers.

Its decision to issue directives to workers comes at a tricky time for Air Malta: summer is the aviation sector’s busiest period and the airline is already operating with a reduced workforce, following efforts to shed hundreds of workers as part of a massive restructuring plan.

The directives also come just days after revelations that the airline’s executive chairperson, David Curmi, is being paid €21,500 a month as well as a €10,000 annual honoraria for sitting on the company’s board.

According to Curmi’s contract, the finance ministry, rather than Air Malta itself, is footing the bill for his three-year, €774,000 pay package.

Curmi’s key task as airline head has been to oversee the restructuring plan announced in early 2022. At the time, the plan was described as a “last chance” for the struggling carrier, which has struggled to make ends meet for years.

The airline moved hundreds of workers off its books in the ensuing months, with severance packages costing taxpayers around €60 million in 2022 alone.

But faced with the prospect of the EU Commission refusing a Maltese government request to pump almost €300 million into the airline as state aid, Curmi acknowledged earlier this year that work is underway to set up a separate national carrier, independent of the debt-riddled Air Malta. 

The Nationalist Party said in a statement that Prime Minister Robert Abela and Finance Minister Clyde Caruana were too busy solving internal issues to focus on guaranteeing a future for the national airline and its workers.