A request by Air Malta for a court to temporarily stop industrial action by the airline's pilots was upheld on Monday.
In a statement, the airline said the Court has upheld Air Malta’s request and temporarily stopped the industrial action.
The court will be convening next Friday 5 July to discuss this injunction, the airline said.
In its own statement, the Association of Pilots (ALPA) temporaily withdrew the industrial action.
Air Malta this morning filed an application for an injunction to be issued against the pilots’ union (ALPA) and the union executive committee.
Despite the company’s expectation that good sense would prevail, ALPA has issued directives to its members to take industrial action, initially in the form of a 30-minute delay on all flights, Air Malta said.
This action is a consequence to the Government of Malta, Air Malta’s major shareholder, declining the request to guarantee the pilots’ early retirement scheme pay-out, which sees individual pilots getting some €700,000 each at age 55.
Soon after having signed a new collective agreement in January 2018, ALPA has made it clear that it had other demands to make and has raised multiple issues with the company, Air Malta said. In an effort to maintain industrial peace and avoid prejudicing its operations, the company said it entertained discussions with ALPA and has bent over backwards to achieve a compromise position which, while allowing it to compete as effectively as possible, would appease the pilots and avoid disruptions.
After almost 18 months of discussions – amid various challenges, including threatened industrial action from the pilots themselves – on the 28 June 2019 Air Malta and ALPA had reached a compromise position on all matters under discussion, Air Malta said.
The company’s relief was, however, short-lived when during the meeting itself ALPA declared that if the government did not accept to grant the guarantees ALPA was after, it would take industrial action as of the 1 July 2019, the airline said.
Whereas Air Malta acknowledges that taking industrial action is a right protected by law, such right is not unrestricted and Air Malta cannot bear the consequence of a disagreement between its employees and its shareholder. Air Malta has dedicated resources from top management for months with a view to reaching agreement only to discover that, once reached, not even such agreement was sufficient to satisfy ALPA.
ALPA’s demands do not even qualify as a trade dispute, thereby forfeiting the immunity granted by law to the union and its members for acts done in furtherance of a trade dispute. ALPA also failed to give adequate notice of such action to the Company in terms of the collective agreement.
Accordingly, an in order to safeguard its right, its operation and with a view to avoiding further inconvenience to its clients, Air Malta has filed an application requesting the Court to stop ALPA and its members from taking any further illegal action which is prejudicial to the Company and its rights
Air Malta said it will quantify the damages suffered as a consequence of the illegal action taken and will seek to recover such damages from the pilots.
In its statement, ALPA regretted to note that Air Malta seems intent on distorting indisputable facts, as well as painting a false and unclear picture of the prevalent and current state of affairs. It is now clear that Air Malta’s management team has decided to resort to half truths and measures, as well as to blatant and capricious lies, in order to cover the ineptitude and mismanagement which has become prevalent within the higher tiers of the company, ALPA said.
Air Malta’s professional flight crew is entrusted by the airline’s passengers to safely carry out the daily core operations of the company. This is done diligently and to the utmost and best of our members’ ability, who have, on many occasions, unwillingly agreed to forego their legal rights and entitlement when faced with threats and intimidation by the airline’s management.
As a necessary consequence, ALPA said it has has had to resort to industrial action in response to the management's numerous attempts to deploy crew illegally against the stipulated procedures, as well as in response to the company’s persistent failure to address concerns relating to the safety and well-being of its members.
ALPA declared that, pursuant to the filing of an application by Air Malta p.l.c for the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction, which was thereafter acceded to by the Courts of Justice on a provisional basis, our Association has temporarily withdrawn industrial action until a ruling is delivered in relation to the merits thereof in order to let justice take its course.
Notwithstanding, ALPA hereby declares that it will not be intimidated by the tactics being adopted by the airline and will, by no means, detract from its obligations towards its members, as well as its responsibilities relating to safeguarding the safety of the airline’s passengers.