Much of the argumentation that follows has been made by our sister daily paper earlier in the week, but much of that bears repeating until those who would seek to play games with the future of Air Malta finally understand the very severe consequences of putting a gun to the national airline’s head and holding it to ransom.

Allow us to repeat that a strike at Air Malta at this stage in the game would be tantamount to sounding the death knell for the national airline, and anyone who risks bringing down the airline will be held personally responsible by the public and by their own union members.

We could not agree more that a trade union’s raison d’être is to protest when all is not well with the workers that they represent, but, over and above that, a trade union must first fight to protect the jobs themselves.

Four of the unions representing Air Malta workers will gather on Friday to demonstrate against the way the airline’s restructuring plan has been handled and, according to them yesterday, they are to protest in favour of and not against Air Malta.

Again, the right, and indeed the duty, to protest is one of the most sacrosanct in trade unionism. But even more sacrosanct than that is a union’s overriding duty to protect jobs. To protest is a right and duty, but a strike as is being threatened by Air Malta’s pilots is a very dangerous proposition.

At this particular fork in the road, where the European Commission is observing matters very closely as it digests the Air Malta restructuring plan, and where the banks are looking at the airline’s debts with an increasingly wary eye, any such move jeopardises the airline’s chances of survival, which are, truth be told, pretty bleak without a strike.

The €52 million in emergency funding granted to Air Malta had been intended to keep the airline aloft for six months, and now close to seven months have passed. That funding has been stretched threadbare and has by now dwindled to near nothingness.

The airline is, in essence, living off its summer cash flow and would be able to just barely survive, albeit still on a wing and a prayer, on its own steam until the end of the season.

Anyone irresponsible enough to be even contemplating a strike that would ground the national airline must also very seriously contemplate the effect of such an action.

The threat itself, let alone should that threat be realised, is highly irresponsible and the ramifications stretch beyond the actual strike itself. Any such uncertainty in the tourism market leads to cancelled bookings since once an airline strikes there can be no real guarantee of how long that strike might last or whether it could recur.

Anyone contemplating a strike action has obviously not spared a thought to those people who will remain employed at Air Malta as such a strike would only increase the predicament the airline is in, and possibly provide the last nail for its coffin.

It is this same union of pilots that is seeking to place the blame for the state of the airline on Malta International Airport. It is said that the MIA’s exorbitant fees are what have crippled the national airline. But, in reality, the rescue plan must provide for a financial turnaround of at least €52 million and, looking at MIA’s total profit levels last year of €16.97 million one is very hard pressed to understand how any renegotiation of MIA’s fees could bring the airline onto an even keel.

The same argument applies to cargo handling, whose profits of roughly half a million euros, which even if increased tenfold, would hardly make a significant impact.

This is not to say that these areas do not need to be improved upon. They do, and the airline’s new management would be very foolish indeed if they were not negotiating with MIA and taking a very serious look at cargo operations. These, however, are no silver bullets and the only truly effective way to set the airline on the correct route is by reducing its workforce, plain and simple.

A strike at this point in time, at the very least, would place the airline in more serious difficulty than it is already in and it would also place the livelihoods of those 800-odd workers who do not take up any voluntary schemes in serious jeopardy.

This must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to happen, there is simply too much at stake.