Air Malta have announced they will be needing to let go of 284 cabin crew in the latest effort to stave off financial collapse as a result of COVID-19.

Of these, 139, who were on indefinite term contracts, will need to be made redundant while a further 145 - on fixed term contracts - have already been notified that their employment will not be extended beyond the expiry of its current term, the airline said in a statement issued this evening, citing the failure to reach an agreement with Unions and the dire financial circumstances resulting from the coronavirus crisis as the main reasons.

This leaves only 49 cabin crew – out of 333 employees who fell under the collective agreement signed with the Union of Cabin Crew – still in employment with the national carrier.

This evening’s announcement follows on a tumultuous day for the airline. Earlier, in a letter to the Director General for Industrial and Employment Relations, the company announced the need to make 108 pilots, out of a total of 134, redundant, after talks with pilot union, ALPA on a collective agreement in the wake of coronavirus, stalled.

“The employees retained will be sufficient for Air Malta to continue operating at current levels which are expected to be the case for a number of months. At the same time, Air Malta’s top management, has already accepted a significant pay cut in their salaries as well as the removal of allowances and perks, despite that they are still working to save the airline in these turbulent times,” the statement said.

In the announcement, the airline outlined the difficulties it has had in the wake of the virus, which has decimated the profits of airlines across the globe, saying that in the almost “zero-revenue situation, the company can’t do otherwise for it to survive through this storm.” Despite this, it pledged its commitment to “provide a reliable air transport service to the Malta Islands and its citizens, even in the worst of economic times.”

It expressed disappointment that “the Unions were not considerate and sensitive enough” to the situation at hand, and pointed out that other European airlines have already made thousands of their employees redundant, with air travel not expected to recover for a number of months.

“The Company offered Unions representing different sections of company employees, to agree on a minimum floor of the average pay of the last twelve months, capped at €1200, as basic monthly income which would be applicable for all those on indefinite and definite contracts,” the statement read. “This would have also meant that no employee is made redundant and that those employed on a definite contract would also have been retained in employment.”

The proposal meant that, should an employee be owed compensation in excess of €1200 for work done, then they would have been remunerated on the basis of the actual amount due in terms of the collective agreement.

“Despite the company having offered the same proposal to all Unions representing different sections of its employees, it was only the Engineers union who understood the dire situation the company is in and accepted the proposal through a 90 per cent vote by its members,” the airline said.

It underlined that the Union of Cabin Crew (UCC) were offered the same, but they did not accept the offer. “Unfortunately, the UCC was not favourable to the company’s proposal to keep all employees a salary of at least €1200. ALPA, the union representing the pilots at Air Malta, also did not reply to the company’s offer insisting that the airline to make further counter offers,” the airline said.

“As a result, the Company, regrettably, had to announce to its workforce that a number of employees falling under the collective agreement signed with the UCC and ALPA will be made redundant due to the current circumstances and the failure to reach agreement with the same Unions on cost mitigation measures which could have avoided such redundancies,” it continued.

The news has been communicated to ALPA, UCC, and the Director General for Industrial and Employment Relations in an official communication letter sent and in accordance with applicable legislation.

In recent weeks, Air Malta has had to ground the majority of its fleet, with operations dwindling to a two flights per day, leading the airline to fork out cash reserves in reimbursements and cancellations.

“The COVID-19 crisis brought tourism to a halt, meaning that the airline’s cash returns from the sale of flight tickets vanished. The Airline is currently servicing the country to fly in Maltese citizens stranded abroad, as well as bringing in crucial cargo, essential medical equipment and supplies. However, this is not enough to help the company maintain its current fixed payroll costs,” it said.