It is amazing how one side of this government’s brain does not absorb the lessons the other side has learnt.

Last year we had the long drawn-out saga of the low cost airlines, with a reluctant government playing the mule and refusing, until it was almost too late, to learn the lessons of plain simple economics and the way the world market is playing.

When finally the government was pushed by practically the whole sector into gingerly opening the door ever so slightly to let in the first low cost airline, we are now seeing, and enjoying, the surge in tourist numbers throughout the year. The irony is that it is the same government that now wants to take credit for bringing in the low cost airlines!

Recently, the government, at long last, learnt a similar very valuable lesson: that the only way to stop the huge brain drain of medical doctors from Malta was to give them salaries comparable to those they would receive anywhere else in Europe.

As a result of the agreement signed with the Medical Association of Malta at the end of October, after it had been approved by the vast majority of MAM members, consultants who accept to forfeit private practice practically more than double their salary from Lm13,000 to Lm28,000 and, if they still retain their private practice, can still earn up to Lm24,000. House officers have also been given a 50 per cent increase in salary while registrars and senior registrars will be getting a Lm7,000 rise; health centre doctors will receive double the allowance they get today and trainee general practitioners will see their current Lm10,000 salary rise to Lm16,000 by 2011.

At long last, the government has understood the lessons of modern economics and has learnt that in this open and globalised world you either keep your high-end workers happy or they will find jobs elsewhere in the world. In fact, till our governments and health authorities learnt this lesson, Malta lost whole generations of doctors and consultants who are now highly successful all over the world. It is futile and hopeless to imagine that Malta could hold all of them here, nor should it have done so, but who in the end was the loser? Malta, simply and plainly.

If this was a salutary lesson, why, to repeat, does one side of the government brain not learn the lesson learned by the other side of the same brain?

The reference, of course, is to the Air Malta pilots. One might think that the biggest brain drain from Malta were the doctors and consultants but former Air Malta pilots beg to differ: they claim the largest exodus in percentage of one single profession has probably been the pilot group in the last five years amounting to around 30 per cent.

So many good people have left, perhaps the ones that were most flexible and marketable. The biggest number is now flying for Emirates and many of them are Training Captains on the Airbus fleet. One of them is also the Chief Flight Instructor - Airbus at Emirates and he may well be the first to do training on the A380!

There are Maltese pilots flying with Emirates Airlines and Etihad of UAE, Qatar Airways, Gulf Air in Bahrain, Singapore Airlines, Dragonair of Hong Kong, XL Airways and Ryanair in the UK, Latvia Airlines and a few others.

Why did this happen? No, it was not opportunities provided on joining the EU. In fact the majority are working outside Europe.

It is simply a matter of supply and demand. The demand for pilots globally is immense and airlines now have to cancel flights due to shortage of experienced captains. One only needs to look at the international aviation magazines such as Flight International or Air Transport World to gauge the shortage.

For many years the pilot group lived in hope that conditions would one day be competitive, especially when Malta joined the EU. This did not happen and salaries in Malta are today about 50 per cent of what they are in the UK. So they vote with their feet.

A pilot working with British Airways or Lufthansa or any other European airline enjoys a sizeable pension after about 25 years of service. Whereas those who left Air Malta after so many years did not get a single cent!

There are no pension or gratuity schemes at Air Malta and on reaching the national retiring age a pilot would receive the ridiculously capped national pension scheme. And in their working years at Air Malta they would have paid up to Lm0.25 million in taxes and national insurance.

They did not even get travel concessions from Air Malta enjoyed by all parliamentarians and all ex-directors of Air Malta that may have served the airline for a year or two.

Unlike all the other employees, the pilot group were never offered early retirement by Air Malta.

In addition to all the above, there is a total disrespect for the pilot group at Air Malta and this starts at the very top. Imagine a Captain entrusted with Lm25 million worth of equipment and scores of passengers having to sign in on a filthy (literally) palm reader or having CCTV in the briefing room, or lacking parts of their uniform, and so on.

Unless they receive the same salaries and respect as their European counterparts from management and the government there will be an even bigger exodus in the years to come.