The Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air is dismantling 40 flight attendants at its Luqa home base. This is justified by the fact that no agreement could be reached with the union that would include wage cuts over a period of four years. Malta Air repeatedly threatened to cut 20 pilot and 40 flight attendant positions if the employee representatives did not accept the paycuts.

The procedure is somewhat reminiscent of the fate that the Lauda workforce had in Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Palma de Mallorca and Vienna. Either less money is accepted or a certain number of employees have to leave or the entire base is closed - this is what happened in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart. Malta Air writes in an internal letter to the workforce in Luqa that a minimum payment has been guaranteed. You would only carry out around ten percent of the flight operations, but have the costs for 100 percent of the pilots and flight attendants. The Maltese base has 179 employees - the Ryanair subsidiary has now parted with around a fifth.

“Without this emergency wage agreement, which has already been agreed with the Malta Air pilots, the loss of jobs among cabin crew can unfortunately no longer be avoided. As a direct result of the GWU union's failure to comply with the agreement with Malta Air, 40 cabin crew layoffs are being carried out, ”the circular reads. The words are strongly reminiscent of the approach taken by the sister company Laudamotion in Vienna, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart.

The GWU union sees things completely differently. General Secretary Josef Bugeja told the Times of Malta newspaper: “Malta Air wanted the collective agreement to be retroactive from June 2020, which we did not agree as we urged the contract to start from the date it was signed. We proposed an agreement that corresponds in our law and in which we reduce working conditions by four weeks, but Malta Air said this was not enough. Malta Air gave us the choice of either accepting the four years or there will be layoffs. "