Finance Minister dubs Air Malta pilot collective agreement clause ‘madness’

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said a clause in the collective agreement for Air Malta pilots allows them to retire at 55 while continuing to receive their salary is “madness”.

Speaking on One TV, Caruana said that he “will never, and I repeat never, accept any such conditions in any future collective agreement”.

“But once there is a signed collective agreement with legal validity, I can’t remove it and say that’s the end of it.”

Caruana had been responding to a story on the Sunday Times of Malta that Air Malta pilots could get golden handshakes of up to €1 million each.

He explained that pilots and cabin crew put into their collective agreement a legal clause that allows them to retire at 55, with the company obliged to continue paying them two-thirds of their salary until they reach official retirement age.

MaltaToday had already reported on plans by government to “buy out” this clause with a one-time payment.

Air Malta is passing through a painful restructuring process as government seeks the European Commission’s green light to shore up the airline.

In January, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana had announced a voluntary employee transfer scheme in a bid to cut Air Malta’s workforce by half and save €15 million per year in wages.

However, this process has stalled and government pushed back the deadline for Air Malta’s employee transfer scheme to the end of the year, while also introducing a generous voluntary redundancy and early retirement scheme.

Pilots were excluded from this latest exercise since Air Malta had sacked 69 pilots in the summer of 2020 after talks with the Airline Pilots Association broke down. The move came after a protracted stand-off between the airline’s management and pilots after the latter refused to accept a social wage of €1,200 per month in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Caruana has said that the restructuring process will involve renegotiating all collective agreements to give the airline more flexibility.