MP questions employment of Air Malta’s chairperson’s driver

Opposition MP Antoine Borg has questioned why Air Malta is employing a full-time driver for its chairperson, given the company’s financial situation.

“Under normal circumstances, a driver for a chairperson is no big deal,” Borg, the PN’s tourism spokesperson wrote on Facebook. “However, Air Malta is not a normal circumstance. Employees have been asked to make sacrifices, kids were made to pay [the same slight fares] as adults, and its fleet is to be reduced. The government is in a mess trying to avoid European Commission proceedings.”

He also questioned whether the driver will be paid from the unsecured loans issued to the national airline by Bank of Valletta to make good for its losses in a fuel-hedging agreement.

The Times of Malta today reported that the driver was employed on a position of trust basis and that his contract would expire at the end of Micallef’s tenure. Air Malta employees questioned why Micallef recruited a driver from outside the company, rather than somebody already on the airline’s payroll.

Upon being appointed chairperson last year, Micallef declared that the airline was trying to cut costs across the board in a bid to bring a forecast €25 million in losses for March 2015, down to €16 million. MaltaToday reported on Sunday that Air Malta plans to cut further costs by relocating its headquarters to its engineering department so as to save the money it is currently paying in rent for the SkyParks offices it moved into just three years ago.