Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1234806
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 12 APRIL 2020 NEWS The best Easter gift you can give to yourself and your loved ones is to STAY HOME C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Coronavirus - New Advert Eng & Mlt - 2020 (6) copy.pdf 1 08/04/2020 13:42:03 Pilots' collective agreement CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The 2016 side-letter was then confirmed again in another side-letter, also attached to the collective agreement that fol- lowed, in which Zammit Lew- is confirmed the "guarantee of work", with ALPA finally an- nouncing it was renouncing on its industrial dispute. An airline source has insisted the wording of the agreement, which forms part of the collec- tive agreement, is a guarantee that pilots terminated from Air Malta would still be granted a job on the state payroll at their same take-home pay. There was no comment yes- terday from either the min- ister for the economy, Silvio Schembri, or ALPA spokesper- son Dominic Azzopardi, on the contents of these side-letters. Last week Air Malta took the unprecedented step to make 108 pilots from its staff of 134 redundant, after ALPA refused to take a radical pay cut of €1,200 a month due to the coronavirus grounding all flights. The collective agreement states that pilots' licences will be renewed by the company prior to termination of em- ployment, and that "in cases of redundancies… or a change in the state of affairs of the company, discussions should be held between the compa- ny and the union to reach an agreement on the amount of compensation that the affected employees should receive. This should be additional to any other benefits the employee might be entitled to." According to the collective agreement, newly appointed junior first officers are paid €24,000 while first officers start at €34,000 and captains' take- home pay starts at €66,000 and can reach €109,000. These ex- clude performance-based pay- ments for hours spent flying, layover allowances, and denied days of duty: in the latter case, at the end of each month, crew members are paid any denied days free of duty at the rate of their basic salary multiplied by 0.004: which could be as much as €200 for each day denied. An agreement drawn up over industrial action on the in- spection of data recorders, also yielded an annual allowance for captains of €9,000, and €7,000 for first officers. The collective agreement al- so includes an early retirement scheme for pilots who have reached the age of 55 and have given 25 years' service – two- thirds of their basic salary, plus 0.1% of basic salary per month until reaching retirement age.