The Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air was unable to agree on wage cuts with its flying staff in its home base Luqa (Malta). Now a third of the employees have to leave. The

Around 60 pilots and flight attendants from Malta Air will lose their jobs. Initially affected the home base at Luqa Airport, which, however, is not the largest base of the Lauda group sister. According to the Times of Malta, which cites an employee circular, the terminations are to be pronounced in June 2020.

The daily newspaper quotes the management as saying that there is an "unavoidable need for layoffs in order to survive the COVID-19 crisis". The roughly 60 layoffs correspond to a third of the flight personnel stationed at Luqa Airport. Previously, from the management's point of view, negotiations on “appropriate wage cuts” had failed and were rejected by employees and their union. According to the Times of Malta, the notice period is only one month, the last day of employment is June 30, 2020.

“Due to COVID19, we are facing a traffic decrease of up to 50 percent this year. We are doing our best to save jobs. We have agreed on wage cuts with our pilots that are sufficient to avoid this. Job losses, but our cabin crew has not yet accepted our salary proposals, which means that job losses of up to 40 cabin crew are now inevitable, ”Malta Air told the daily Times of Malta. “The aim is to agree on efficiency increases that could reduce or eliminate the need for job losses”.

Malta Air is widely believed not to be majority owned by Ryanair. The so-called "golden share" and thus the majority is held by the Maltese state. Participation is under the administration of the Ministry of Tourism. However, this did not want to comment on the current situation at Malta Air.