Air Malta and the government have now put what they consider to be the best offer they can possibly make, without breaking the airline's back once and for all, on the table for its employees. But by the sounds of it, not all employees are immediately jumping aboard the new deal.

The deal will see employees across the board being given a 20% salary increase staggered out over a five-year period, and in return the airline expects more productivity out of them. The airline's employees and their unions have been given the rest of the year to do their calculations and to take a decision.

But the airline's pilots, for one, yesterday told this newspaper that the deal was wholly unsatisfactory and that they want discussions to continue.

The new deal they have been offered will, by their workings, see pilots earning less and working more in 2018.

The Air Malta saga has been a long and winding one. In the wake of the long drawn out collapse of the government's talks last year with Alitalia over a strategic partnership, the airline now appears to be flying on nothing more than a wing and a prayer.

The national airline has rarely been clear of turbulence over recent years, from its near bankruptcy and the €130 million bailout in the form of the state aid it had been given in 2012 under the previous government, to the current government's failed bids to entice a strategic partner.

Now the airline intends going it alone, perhaps because the government's long search for a strategic partner has been all but exhausted. And in order to do so and to somehow remain on an even keel, it has offered all its employees a new deal.

Now whether that will be a take-it-or-leaveit-deal remains to be seen, with Tourism Minister, the new man in charge of the airline since the post-election Cabinet reshuffle, having said last Sunday that there is a Plan B for the airline: to shut it down and reopen it as a 'legacy-free' airline. By 'legacy-free' one can assume Mizzi is referring to its legacy staff.

He told our sister Sunday edition this week: "In the eventuality that we will not be in a position to implement the revenue-driven revitalisation plan, we will then have no other option but to consider Plan B due to solvency issues.

"This would mean the closure of Air Malta and the opening of a new airline without any legacy constraints to fill the void. It is our responsibility to have a Plan B."

Air Malta appears to be on its last wing and its last prayer, with government subsidies and any further state aid for the ailing airline off the cards, at least in terms of European Union rules. That leaves the airline with little, if any, room for manoeuvre.

It may be that Air Malta does not have a future but if there is any chance whatsoever to save what is a strategic national asset, the government must seek to employ every means at its disposal to save the airline.

But it remains to be seen whether the airline's staff, represented by their unions, will be on board.

And judging by the pilot's initial reaction to yesterday's offer, it appears that there may very well be further turbulence ahead for the national airline.

But if the airline is to survive, something somewhere has clearly got to give.