95% of the General Workers’ Union members who work at Air Malta have voted in favour of an agreement reached between the union and the government on termination packages.

The vote took place across two meetings held on Wednesday and Thursday, and the vast majority of the members voted in favour of the agreement which includes an early retirement scheme.

The GWU represents Air Malta’s administrative staff and its ground handlers.

An agreement had been reached in February that workers who would be leaving the national airline as part of its last ditch cost-cutting effort would be guaranteed a job in the public sector with a guaranteed take home pay.

The new agreement however also introduces an early retirement scheme for workers – something which Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, under whose remit Air Malta falls, had originally not planned to include.

The GWU Secretary General Josef Bugeja said that the government, Air Malta and the union had agreed on early retirement schemes and on an extension of the date by when Air Malta employees will be transferred to RSSL – a government company.

The new deadline for transfers will be 31 December 2022, after it became clear that the previous deadline – 12 August – was not going to be reached.

The company received 571 applications from a total of 824 eligible employees for the redeployment scheme by the time applications for it closed on 11 February – considerably more than the government was expecting.

The GWU said that it was represented in the talks by section secretary Sandro Vella.