TV presenter Karl Stagno Navarra has said that he is going to file a libel case against media house Lovin Malta over what he called a piece of “malicious and irresponsible” reporting on his position in Air Malta.

Lovin Malta on Wednesday ran a story titled ‘Karl Stagno-Navarra on €90,000 Air Malta contract, despite hundreds losing their jobs’, which was based on the premise that the Labour political TV show host was still employed with the airline on a mammoth contract while hundreds of others at the national airline were getting the sack.

In their article, Lovin Malta said that Air Malta had confirmed that Stagno Navarra was still employed with them and that his remuneration is in line with grades in similar positions, with no actual figure being given.

The media house quoted reports which said that Stagno Navarra had a salary of €90,000 per year.

In a post on his Facebook profile, Stagno Navarra said that the story is “completely false and intended only to create incitement between Air Malta workers” and that it also had the intention of causing attacks against him on social media.

“It is absolutely not true that I receive a €90,000 salary from Air Malta.  The real figure is very far from what Lovin Malta decided to publish with so much irresponsibility,” he wrote.

He said that his salary had been published when someone had filed a Freedom of Information request and that the people who requested it had been astonished at how low the real figure was.

He also said that he, like other workers at Air Malta, had received a letter asking for him to consider leaving the airline by the end of this coming February.

Stagno Navarra said that he had instructed his lawyers to open a libel case against Lovin Malta over the article, calling it “malicious and irresponsible reporting”, and said that any money he wins will be dedicated to the families who are hardest hit by the airline’s restructuring process.