The national airline has rarely been clear of turbulence over recent years, from its near bankruptcy and the €52 million bailout it had under the previous government to the current government’s search for and ongoing negotiations to bring in a strategic partner, in what will effectively be another bailout for the ailing airline.

Earlier this week, the courts upheld a prohibitory injunction against the airline’s pilots’ association, which is threatening to turn its industrial action against Air Malta up quite few notches – from the current dress down action it is taking to actually going full throttle and delaying flights and/or suspending services altogether.

It was a small mercy that the courts saw it fit to uphold the airline’s request for an injunction against any such further strike action, but that will be challenged on Friday by Airline Pilots Association (ALPA).

One cannot argue with ALPA’s assertion, as it put it yesterday, that “The application filed by Air Malta in the Maltese courts to ask for the issue of a prohibitory injunction against ALPA constitutes a clear threat to the right of free association of workers, as well as to their entitlement to safeguard as a last option these rights by resorting to industrial action. A right which is upheld not only by Maltese Laws but also by International Law and whereby workers’ interests are protected and deemed unalienable.”

Yes, the right to strike is sacrosanct but then again the association needs to appreciate that with the threat of such action, let alone taking it, is not only placing their own company and their own jobs at risk, but they are also placing their country’s economy and the livelihoods of thousands of their fellow citizens at risk in the process.

The government is in the midst of negotiating a 49 per cent purchase of Air Malta by Alitalia, and the threats come smack bang in the middle of summer – the tourism industry’s peak season. As such, there are thousands of people relying on summer tourism revenue, which the pilots are placing in jeopardy even with talk of a strike.

The airline’s pilots, it seems, know very well how to choose their timing for maximum effect. In fact, the last time the airline’s pilots threatened similar industrial action was back in July 2011 – again, in the midst of the high season. At the time it was common knowledge that the airline had eaten through the €52 million in emergency funding granted to Air Malta, which had been intended to keep the airline aloft for six months, and the airline was living solely off its summer cash flow.

As this newspaper reported last Sunday, the industrial action being contemplated by the Air Malta Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) – over and above the current no jackets and no caps directive – could cost the beleaguered airline as must as €575,000 a day.

In one of Air Malta’s risk scenarios, a full day’s strike by flight personnel on a very busy day, such as a Sunday in July, would cost the airline €574,414 – per day. If such action were taken on two busy days – impacting its bottom line by over €1.1 million – it could very well deliver a fatal blow to the ailing airline.

Although not as dire a threat as a full day’s strike, other scenarios would at the very least deliver serious wounds to the company. In another scenario, in which flight personnel refuse to operate a popular morning flight, Air Malta would be impacted by a cost estimate of €50,378. In another more muted scenario in which flight personnel would delay one morning flight by two hours, the airline would suffer a monetary hit of €18,290 each time such action is taken.

In the meantime, ALPA and Air Malta’s management remain at loggerheads over the negotiation of a new collective agreement; talks which have been set back as the national airline continues to thrash out a takeover agreement with Alitalia that would see the Italian carrier become the Maltese carrier’s strategic partner.

But should the pilot’s industrial action go full scale, the financial ramifications for Air Malta could be catastrophic – coming as it would in the middle of the peak season and anyone irresponsible enough to be even contemplating a strike that would ground the national airline must also very seriously contemplate the effects of such an action.

The threat itself, let alone should that threat be realised, is highly irresponsible and no one should be allowed put a gun to the airline’s head and hold it to ransom. The ramifications of a strike go far beyond the actual strike itself. Any such uncertainty in the tourism market leads to cancelled bookings since once an airline is subjected to a strike, there can be no real guarantee of how long that strike might last or whether it could recur.

It is sincerely hoped that both reason and, above all else the national interest, will prevail on both dates but as matters stand nothing should be discounted.

Air Malta pilots must remember that while they may very well be able to find employment with other airlines, albeit in other countries, their fellow employees at Air Malta and thousands of their fellow citizens who depend on Air Malta’s viability in so many ways are perhaps not so fortunate.