An “unfair” system of how overtime is allotted to Air Malta cabin crew has caused some members to struggle financially while others are enjoying the benefits, The Malta Independent is informed.

Noel Mercieca, the head of the Air Malta – Union of Cabin Crew, said that working overtime is not an option and, if cabin crew were to refuse to work extra hours, a “substantial” number of flights would have to be cancelled. However, there were problems with the way overtime was being allocated.

He explained that overtime essentially translates into extra wages, but because of how the system works – where a group of people within Air Malta divides up the overtime among cabin crew - some workers end up with much more overtime flights than others, meaning they end up earning more at the end of the month.

The union currently has a directive in place, with cabin crew not wearing their ties and caps.

Mercieca stressed that if the system was fully automated and not left in the hands of individuals, this would ensure that overtime is spread equally among crew. According to a collective agreement that expired in 2013 but is informally in place, hours must be divided fairly and equitably, he added.

“At the end of the day some people are suffering financially because of these cases. Everybody wants to get paid, but while some people are assigned six overtime flights, others might only be assigned one, or none. We have visibility of the roster, otherwise we would not know that one person is getting more overtime than others.”

He stressed treating crew members so differently was very unfair, and questioned how crew members could be expected to be flexible on a number of working conditions when they were facing situations like this one.

Asked whether this issue was related to the expired collective agreement, Mercieca clarified that the issues were separate and distinct.

Questions have been sent to Air Malta in order to see why this issue has not yet been resolved. This newsroom has also sought to confirm that no automated system has been put in place till today and whether the company has any form of time frame for resolving the issue.

In March and April, the Union for Cabin Crew (UCC) registered several industrial actions over last minute workers being called to plug gaps in the designated roster. Back in March, two consecutive flights had been delayed because there was no in-flight manager - two pursers who were on standby were called in to fill in but nobody had been called to replace them.

The situation had even resulted in some members of the crew reaching their contractual 12-month flying maximum limit and temporarily being prohibited from flying.

Air Malta has faced a number of issues from several workers’ unions over the past decade as it went through restructuring. The troubled national airline has broken even for the first time in 10 years. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed last year with Alitalia, however this never went through. With the new minister responsible for Air Malta having been appointed, Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi, he declared that a full restructuring programme would have to be underway before talks with strategic partners can proceed.

Back in 2012, the EU Commission allowed the Maltese government to inject cash as a form of state aid one last time. Due to the EU’s single market, with free movement of people, goods, services and capital, state aid is generally forbidden as this would create distortions in the market.

 It was established that by 2014 Air Malta had to balance its budget, and register a profit by March 2016. Air Malta projected losses of €4 million for the financial year-end March 2016, significantly lower than the €15 million loss registered at the end of March 2015. No penalties were incurred because of the substantial improvement. Now that Air Malta has managed to break even, many believe that some form of financial stability for the company is in sight.