Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1253597
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 MAY 2020 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 First officers' salaries range from €50,000 to €80,000, while that of captains stands at be- tween €90,000 and €140,000. Last week the Union of Cabin Crew accepted reduced salaries after Air Malta took the unprec- edented step of making 108 pi- lots and 139 cabin crew redun- dant. The UCC deal has enabled Air Malta to retain the equiva- lent of 125 full-time cabin crew workers, with reduced hours and salaries. Their job guarantee will however expire in 2022. "Ryanair is shedding jobs and once airports re-open, their pricing is going to be aggressive. Air Malta will be facing a tourist season with a high labour cost and the risk of being priced out of the market. We cannot afford not to be ship-shape for the sea- son," an airline source told Mal- taToday. But Air Malta pilots are still insisting on their demands for a handsome early retirement package for pilots over 50. The same demand was made in 2019, when ALPA demanded a guar- antee that an early retirement scheme that pays them €700,000 at retirement at age 55, will be retained should the airline fail. Pilots already have an early re- tirement scheme for those over 55 with 25 years' service, which pays them two-thirds of their basic salary, plus 0.1% of basic salary per month until reaching retirement age. At an average €80,000 salary, that would guar- antee them an annual salary of €53,000 until retirement. ALPA represents some 134 pi- lots at the national airline. Also yesterday, redundancies started at Ryanair's Malta Air base in Malta, with COVID-19 restrictions now forcing the air- line to lay off workers. Malta Air informed employees it would propose a 10% salary cut for the next five years due to projections showing the compa- ny being unable to recover in the short-term. Sources said around 20 pilots and 40 cabin crew will be made redundant from the full com- plement of 179 pilots and cabin crew. In a memo sent to employees by Malta Air's human resources department on Friday, workers were told of "unavoidable need for redundancies" due to the COVID-19 crisis. Employees had already re- ceived a similar memo two days earlier on Wednesday 27 May. "We regret to inform you that due to the COVID-19 crisis and the failure of our recent discus- sions with the ERCs to agree reasonable pay cuts, we need to make significant cost-reductions and implement urgent restruc- turing to protect the viability of our Maltese base," Malta Air told employees made redundant. Terminations will come into effect from 30 June, with a one- month notice that will be paid in full settlement of claims. At the start of May, Ryanair announced plans to return to 40% of normal flight schedules from 1 July, subject to govern- ment restrictions being lifted. Ryanair said it would operate a daily flight schedule of almost 1,000 flights, restoring 90% of its pre-COVID-19 route network. Ryanair launched subsidiary airline Malta Air in 2019, oper- ating out of Malta with a fleet of six aircraft that was expected to grow to 10 over three years. The airline aimed to carry 5 million passengers in the first five years of operation. The new airline took on the 62 routes Ryanair currently oper- ates out of Malta, as well as reg- istering over 50 other aircraft to Malta's aircraft register. Ryanair Holdings plc report- ed a full year profit of €1 billion compared to €885m in 2018. Most of Ryanair's fleet was grounded from mid-March by EU Government flight bans and restrictions. These groundings reduced March and full-year traffic by over five million guests and cut 2020 profits by over €40 million. Pilots still holding out on Air Malta talks CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The inquiry was launched after NGO Repubblika filed a criminal complaint after a boat was taken back to Libya by a commercial vessel, with five migrants confirmed dead and seven others missing. The complaint also accused Prime Min- ister Robert Abela and AFM commander Jeffrey Curmi, as well as the AFM's P52 crew that first assisted the boat, of caus- ing their deaths. According to the NGO Alarm Phone, the Maltese authorities deliberately ig- nored a distress call and then coordinat- ed the pick-up of a boatload of 63 people who were returned to Libya. Later, Repubblika conceded that the migrant manning the outboard engine on the dinghy was directed by a P52 crew member to pull what is known as a 'kill switch' to shut off the engine – a stand- ard procedure in rescues of this type to ensure the safety of all parties involved – and not that the engine was deliberately damaged. The other issue was whether the refus- al to take in the other boat in distress in Maltese SAR responsibilities makes Mal- ta guilty of an act of refoulement, for the AFM ultimately coordinated the inter- vention of a commercial vessel to take the boat back to Libya. Since the boat poten- tially carried asylum seekers, the act of returning the migrants to the place they were fleeing from would be illegal in the eyes of international law. Magistrate Joe Mifsud found no grounds for criminal action against the Prime Minister or the AFM commander in a criminal inquiry following a report filed by NGO Repubblika, in which it accused the AFM of sabotaging a vessel carrying migrants at sea. Repubblika alleged homicide after the international press reported that the crew of AFM patrol boat P52 had boarded a dinghy carrying migrants and cut the cables of the vessel's motor. The govern- ment eventually ordered the migrants aboard the dinghy to be brought to shore, where they were taken into quarantine. In his conclusions to the voluminous re- port, the magistrate notes that the closure of Malta's ports because of the coronavi- rus pandemic was in line with previously adopted policies, which were entirely in conformity with Malta's rights under in- ternational law. He quoted EU Commissioner Ylva Jo- hansson as saying on May 8 that "we will have to gradually put an end to re- strictions on free movement and inter- nal border controls, before we can lift entry restrictions at the external bor- ders and guarantee access to the EU for third-country nationals." The magistrate's report also quotes from a UN document which describes migrants in transit as being "at high risk of contracting the virus" and that "basic public health measures, such as social distancing, hand hygiene and self-isola- tion may also be very difficult [for them] to observe". Mifsud also said the human smuggling industry was undergoing rapid expansion in Libya, quoting the UNHCR as saying that smuggling networks are "dynamic, in constant evolution and, it would appear, increasingly professional". "Malta could not renounce its interna- tional obligations to coordinate rescue," Mifsud said, noting that the government had fulfilled this obligation. "But the in- ternational community must also step up to its responsibilities, which are not sim- ply those of creating laws and treaties… Real burden sharing and not only on pa- per. Real solidarity, not only in the decla- rations of principles of treaties and laws." Rescue NGO Alarm Phone had refused to allow the court to hear recordings of the distress calls, saying that it would identify the person making the call. This excuse was not accepted by the court, which said that this did not help to un- cover the truth. Alarm Phone had later submitted a transcript of the calls to the court. "The findings of the inquiry contrast- ed greatly with that which Alarm Phone alleged," the inquiry noted, referring to technical shortcomings in court docu- ments presented by Repubblika and the fact that they had not sought to clarify matters with the AFM, the Prime Minis- ter or the source of the tweets that first reported the allegations. "Beyond this case, it is not right how in this country we have ended up with everyone saying what they want to and nobody answering for their actions and words when it emerges that it was false or fake news." The magistrate even rued the revoca- tion of a section of the Criminal Code which imposed imprisonment or a fine for those who intentionally spread mali- cious rumours. "The allegations were not found to be founded on evidence, neither eyewitness or documentary." Circumstantial evidence was not equiv- ocal, said the magistrate, and concluded that the inquiry had not established that the crew of P52 had carried out an at- tempted murder or that Abela and Curmi could have been involved in a murder. Mifsud noted with dismay the fact that neither Alarm Phone or those who pre- sented the criminal complaints had men- tioned the role of traffickers putting out migrant at sea, saying these had to be held responsible for their criminal actions. Magistrate does not delve into pushback