Air Malta is facing an exodus of pilots, or at least, there is a recurring pattern setting in. Pilots tomorrow are expecting some progress over a collective agreement which, three years ago, was suspended in favour of a memorandum of understanding – a three-year rescue plan for the national airline which included salary cuts for pilots and cabin crew. The novelty is that the MOU precludes pilots from using the word “salary cuts” because it doesn’t describe them as such. “We can’t call it a salary cut, because the MOU says we cannot,” Captain James Fenech, president of the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) says. “The MOU contains a paragraph saying that it cannot be considered as a wage cut or a salary freeze. What it means is that when our collective agreement finished, it was decided that we would give a portion of our salaries back to the company. We receive the salary check and we pay back an amount to the company, in my case as a captain I was giving Lm100 a month back to the company over three years. It appears as a deduction on my salary slip, but I cannot call it a salary cut.” Pilots have endured this cut in salaries for three years, and are now asking for industry standard salaries. But this in itself is a tall order, one which Air Malta may be loathe to accept. Doubling its pilots’ salaries may be the last thing in mind for an airline which is fighting off fuel hikes and the onslaught from low-cost airlines moving in on their routes. But Fenech says Air Malta was expected to cut costs while its pilots made sacrifices, something which maybe the airline has not managed to do yet. “Air Malta is saying it has respected all its obligations towards the cost-cutting plan. But the main target to save the company hasn’t happened yet: Air Malta is still making a loss. “On 1 August, Air Malta pilots should have had a collective agreement in place. We were meant to start negotiating six months before that date. We had the odd meeting here and there, but it only kicked off three months ago. Right now, they say things are moving along. We are seeing an actual deadlock. We are still waiting to be offered a decent salary package. It’s a waiting game. The management should be coming back to us tomorrow on Thursday.” In the meantime, Fenech says more pilots are leaving. “Since we signed the memorandum of understanding three years ago, Air Malta lost over 30 Maltese pilots. It lost a further six foreign pilots called in to fill in the blanks. They had no flying hours to their name flying on jets and were employed on a two-year contract. One of them left without even having notched 80 hours of flying. Now these pilots end up flying with another airline, with less flying hours accomplished than Maltese pilots, and end up with a higher salary than us. It is a salary that is higher than the training captains’ salaries who instructed them at Air Malta.” In the last weeks however, where ALPA also put on a symbolic strike by dressing down for their job, Air Malta and its pilots have not come close to an agreement. First, a second attempt at extending the MOU failed. “They wanted to deduct another monthly Lm100 from our salaries. We refused, and they offered to keep the present salaries as they are. We told them it was out of the question and we presented out proposals. They said they were ridiculous because we wanted double our salaries. But we’re asking for industry rates which will keep pilots with Air Malta. “Our salaries are way below industry averages. Last year I earned Lm25,000. People working with Emirates earn almost Lm48,000 a month, apart from free housing, free schooling, and a lot of other perks such as a pension fund. But even if you had to compare with other lesser airlines, Air Malta can be said to be airline with the lowest, or second-lowest pilots’ salaries in Europe. “We’re also after a structured rostering pattern. The problem with our rosters is that it is done in a haphazard way. There are certain guidelines which are not being followed. We want hard, fixed rules. For example, normally we should not be rostered for more than four consecutive flights: you should have four flights and an off day before taking up another flight.” But could a doubling of salaries be sustainable at this point for Air Malta, or was ALPA neglecting to take note of the company’s financial status? “We want the salary because it is the industry rate. They said it was unsustainable because of the state of the company. One option we offered is to take a little increase in the first year of some three or four per cent of our salary. But it would depend on what they give us in the second and third year. We would at least give them some more breathing space. “What is sustainable or unsustainable is a dicey argument. The price of fuel has skyrocketed. Many other things have increased, including pilots’ salaries. Air Malta is certainly at a crossroads, but it needs pilots to fly. For us, to make the offer to take a small increase in the first year of a collective agreement, is already one-third of what we demanded.” Even low-cost airlines seem to have something to show Air Malta about sustainability. “LCCs are a bit of sore point, considering that government is subsidising routes which are in direct competition with the national airline. But government has its own national agenda. It worries us that this will damage Air Malta. But then we ask, if Ryanair is paying its pilots high salaries, why is it making money and Air Malta isn’t? If Ryanair opens a base in Malta it will be bad for Air Malta but pilots will be asking whether it could benefit them – it is a bit of a double-edged sword.” According to Fenech, pilots are already ready to leave. Some of them, planning to take up work with the fledgling Etihad in the UAE, fear they might have lost a chance because of behind-the-scenes manoeuvring. “There is a rumour that pilots may be trying to find employment with Etihad, in Abu Dhabi, whose pilots we are training. But it seems there is a non-poaching agreement so that they don’t employ Air Malta. Air Malta has denied it has a non-poaching agreement. But we do know is that some people had an interview and a simulator session set with Etihad, and then all of a sudden the interview was cancelled, citing ‘unforeseen reasons’ or that the selection process is delayed. Which is weird, because they really need pilots right now. “I know of around 20 pilots who are actively looking around for other employment. It’s a big percentage of pilots, and contrary to what Air Malta says, this is not a normal process. Every airline takes care of its employees. If you are losing experienced pilots, and replacing pilots with 6,000 hours of flight experience with pilots with zero hours, Air Malta is losing out. Many of the foreign pilots are only here for short contracts, maybe six months or two years. As soon as they get a few hours which enable them to be employed with another airline, they will leave because they can earn double of what they earn with Air Malta. “It is a recurring pattern and it will keep on happening, unless the Air Malta pilots’ package is satisfactory. There is the fact that we are working too much. Air Malta says we’re not short of staff, but for the last two years we haven’t taken our full leave entitlement. We’re entitled to the normal 24 days leave. In the last year, pilots took just half their leave on average. It’s a hassle to take your leave since you have to plan ahead, and you’re only given leave a few days before the month starts. The fact that you can’t plan a holiday is stressful on a person.” And the effects of pilots’ unhappiness appear to have been felt even by consumers, with pilots refusing to fly if they are not given the contractual rest periods they are entitled to after their regular days of work. Flights have been cancelled, and the pattern shows no sign of abating unless pilots decide to work on their days of rest. “ALPA has told pilots not to fly if they have been denied rest. After a flight we must have at least 14 hours rest before operating another flight. We know of a lot of people who were approached by management and asked to operate another flight, even if they didn’t want to. They were not supposed to fly according to their roster. Some people were almost pressured to fly, having been told that if they don’t fly the flight would have to be cancelled. We told pilots to think twice: if a pilot shouldn’t do a flight, they shouldn’t be made to cave in to the pressure and fly when they are tired. There’s a safety issue at stake here.”