The handling of Air Malta by successive governments can easily be described as one of the country’s biggest blunders.

It was often used by one government after another for politicians to give jobs to people, resulting in a bloated company with too many employees.

It faced years of trouble. Just prior to the election, government woke up and realised that action needed to be taken. But is this too little too late? Possibly. Years of mismanagement have led us now to this point, a possible breaking point for the airline.

Restructuring plans for the airline in the past failed, and it is now on its last breath.

Government has, in reaction to the situation the airline finds itself in, taken certain decisions which many are questioning.

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.

This move had already raised some eyebrows.

The Malta Chamber of Commerce had recommended that workers who will be shed from Air Malta should first be considered for secondment to the private sector, given the acute human resource shortages.

Then this month, government made another move. The news that 95% of the General Workers’ Union members who work at Air Malta voted in favour of an agreement reached between the union and the government on termination packages broke, and it included an early retirement scheme. The latter is something which Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, under whose remit Air Malta falls, had originally not planned to include. Such deals also make public sector work unfairly attractive. Would employees in the private sector see such a deal in their lifetime? Is it really fair?

Employers were not happy with this update. The Malta Employers' Association described the severance package offered to redundant Air Malta employees as the most obscene agreement in Malta's industrial relations history.

"If the details as mentioned in the media are correct, 350 employees represented by the General Workers' Union could possibly rake a staggering €50m as an outcome of the severance deal. As an example, an employee with five years' experience will be entitled to a lump sum of €80k that is €16k for every year of service. This severance deal is unprecedented and establishes that some animals are indeed more equal than others in Malta,” it said.

The Malta Chamber of Commerce believes that the termination packages for Air Malta employees "appear to be absurdly high and illustrative of how the bargaining power of overly protected groups results in unfair outcomes for the country as a whole". It said that the Air Malta saga is the culmination of decades of unsustainable employment practices and vitiated political interference in the running of the national airline. It said it is particularly concerned that "we will continue paying millions in hefty salaries and superfluous spending" at other entities unless a credible framework for the monitoring of the performance of such entities that is ring-fenced from political interference is put in place.

A few questions arise. Do we need so many more public sector employees? The taxpayer is going to end up footing the bill for the way Air Malta has been run over the years. Would it be better if these employees end up in the private sector, where more employees are needed?

It is starting to look like the millions of taxpayer funds spent in Air Malta over the years were for nothing.

The concerns surrounding this Air Malta deal are there for all to see, but the root cause itself must be dealt with. The Chamber’s idea for entities to be “ring-fenced” from political interference is something that must be taken up in order to avoid more situations similar to Air Malta in the future.

Whether Air Malta survives, or if a new airline has to be created, one thing is for sure, we cannot let the past repeat itself. We need transparency in the way all public entities operate. We also need accountability by those running these companies.

The national airline will need to change its ways. A balance must be found where the company can make profit, while at the same time it can also provide important routes for the country to remain more widely connected.