Some former Air Malta pilots, who accepted to ‘retire’ in exchange for a generous taxpayer-funded golden handshake running into hundreds of thousands of euros only a few months ago, are already back on the books of another airline owned by the Maltese government.
According to the rules set in the Early Retirement Scheme (ERS), pilots who take up the offer are prohibited from working for any government entity for at least three years. Yet some pilots have already found a way to circumvent the rules.
Investigations by The Shift show that at least three former Air Malta pilots benefitting from the ERS are now flying aircraft operated by Malta MedAir, a one-plane charter airline fully owned by the Maltese government.
However, instead of being recruited directly by Malta MedAir, which would put them in direct conflict with the golden handshake rules they signed, they are being hired through Brookfield Aviation International. This UK-registered company provides pilot services to airlines.
The sources said that pilots Bruce Pace, Leslie Vassallo and Arthur Busuttil, until a few months ago working full-time with Air Malta, are being contracted by the UK company to give specific flying services to Malta MedAir. They also said the pilots can still work from their base in Malta while assigned to Malta MedAir.
Air Malta pilots are currently contesting decisions by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana and Chairman David Curmi over what sources described as a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ 33% wage cut while facing redundancy.
“Some privileged pilots paid to retire are instead serving another government airline against the rules, in a roundabout way,” one stressed.
Questions sent to the Finance Ministry and Malta MedAir remained unanswered.
PBS Executive Chairman Mark Sammut, also the Chairman of Malta MedAir, refuses to confirm that the government company has helped ‘fix’ the recruitment of the three former Air Malta pilots with the British service provider.
The sources added that apart from flying Malta MedAir flights, the former Air Malta pilots are also contracted by the government to pilot flights for other airlines.
These include flights operated regularly to Libya and other North African countries by another new Airline, Medsky Airways, which uses the services of Malta MedAir to operate some of its routes.
This year, taxpayers have already forked out more than €60 million in golden handshakes so the government could shed half of Air Malta’s staff to make the national airline leaner and try to save it from bankruptcy.
Another 229 Air Malta employees were transferred onto the government’s payroll as part of this exercise.
Still, the plan has so far failed, with Chairman David Curmi admitting that the company will be folded by the end of this year. He was later publicly reprimanded by Minister Caruana, who insisted that plans were still ‘works in progress’.
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#early retirement scheme
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“Tista’ ma taqbilx maghna, u xorta tahdem maghna” – il-pajjiz tal-opportunitajiet u n-nies mejtin bil-guh. Erda’ siehbi.
Absolutely shameful, Malta excels in circumventing laws, to the detriment of the honest citizen.
How can Air Malta run at a profit, if the chairman Mr Curmi stops the routes to fly to Frankfurt and Manchester and in winter stops the Berlin and Dusseldorf flights, on the excuse that these flights are running at a loss. However once Frankfurt route was stopped Lufthansa flies three times a day from Franfurt to Malta. From Machester Rynair, Easyjet and Jet2 fly daily to Malta. In Winter Ryanair flies from Cologne. What a Chairman- a genius or a fool or corrupt….
It’s a compulsory subject at senior schools.
This government employs the corrupt, how else can these persons be controlled. Then these simply obey orders . incompetence is a qualification with this government . A criminal is given special jobs . Money launderers become consultants. ” Everybody in the cabinet makes a pig of themselves” Official statement by a PL MP who got pissed off.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Many Transport Malta TM – CAD inspectors are all on Air Malta?s early retirement scheme. The director general Captain Charles Pace is an early retiree of Air Malta!
The early retirement scheme payouts are tax free. ( this was a law enacted during the Dockyard ERS schemes to make them attractive ). These pilots are essentially on a tax free salary ( KM ERS taxed at 0% ). And on a 15% retainer on their Medaire jobs as they are employed outside of Malta.
If the pilots’ contracts are/were with Air Malta (not a government agency), all of them would become worthless in the event that the company was wound up in bankruptcy (presumably no assets left to pay unsecured claims). Meaning that their negotiating position should be negligible. So, can Maltese lives only be entrusted to Maltese pilots, or is there something else going on? With plenty of qualified pilots looking for work at reasonable wages within the EU, this smacks of gross incompetence or blatant clientilism on the part of those entrusted to look after the national treasury.
Turu kien hemm dawk hbieb ta’ Pace li ddahhlu TM.
Heqq issa kien imiss lilek hux sabiex tiehu xi haga.
Ilaq il lollipop gahan
Turu xeba jeqred li jrid jieqaf itir meta jiehu l ERS. ? ghajjejt intir ? ? xbajt? ? saru jqallawni il flights ??sakemm dahal mal – Medaire bit-tieni paga, ghax mejjet bil-guh mikkin.! Turu found the joy of flying again after starting to earn a second parallel salary!
Everyone puts his snout in the trough..she said?
Bravo
Exactly.Airmalta stops Lisbon Athens and Scandinavian flights whilst Ryanair takes over and fills them with Maltese passengers.How can AM not provide links to Scandic countries when there are so many gaming employees in Malta and Malta’s climate is so attractive.He has no clue once even commented that AM should keep only its main routes such as Malpensa whilst AM flies daily to Linate not Malpensa.L aqwa li niehdu paga ta 200000.
Pilots training is very expensive however most of them act like spoiled brats. There is also a shortage of pilots that?s why rules are bent for pilots. However they are paid top notch salaries for working for 3 times per week. The architects of the golden handshakes should be taken to public accounts committee to explain how it did not occur to them that their signatures on those agreements would eventually lead us to have to close down Air Malta.
We want accountability Finance Minister.
We want auditing and public accounts committee and jailtime for those who seems to think that robbing tax payers money and closing a vital means of transportation to have a fat bank account.
Thanks to Ms Simone Cini?s husband Dominic Azzopardi, president of the Airline Pilots Association who?s specializes on how to rob the tax payers in the form of Golden handshakes. Some people have not an ounce of shame in their veins.