Collective consultation and an individual unfair-dismissal claim: Degiorgio v Air Malta

The fact that collective consultation takes place through employee representatives does not prevent an individual employee from challenging a dismissal caused by failures in that process. In Degiorgio, the Court of Appeal rejected Air Malta’s attempt to separate the information owed to representatives from the consequences for the employee selected for redundancy.

Redundancy during the pandemic

Degiorgio had worked as a pilot since 2001 and had been promoted to captain in 2018. He was also an ALPA representative involved in discussions with Air Malta during the pandemic. In June 2020 he was among the pilots whose employment was terminated following a collective-redundancy process.

The dispute concerned the information used to explain selection, including seniority rankings and the full-time-equivalent pilot capacity the airline intended to retain. The Tribunal found material differences between information supplied to ALPA and information available to the authorities. A relevant list reached the employee representatives after the redundancies had taken effect.

Degiorgio’s case was that timely information could have allowed him to contest his position, negotiate an alternative or protect his employment. The Tribunal found the dismissal unfair and initially awarded €80,694.

The individual claim was available

Air Malta argued that the information and consultation obligations were owed to representatives, so that the employee could not bring the complaint in his own name. The Court accepted that this raised a legal issue, but rejected the argument.

The claim was an individual unfair-dismissal action. It asked whether the employer’s failures had prejudiced Degiorgio and caused an unfair termination. The Court recognised the importance of the information being available before the dismissals, while a meaningful challenge or alternative arrangement remained possible.

The Court referred to other captains being moved to first-officer roles to reduce job losses. That context made the ability to understand and question the selection process significant. The genuine existence of an operational redundancy situation did not answer whether this employee had been dismissed fairly.

The Court also rejected the contention that the possibility of criminal proceedings for a breach displaced the Tribunal’s jurisdiction over the unfair-dismissal claim.

Compensation required a reasoned assessment of the loss

Both parties challenged the original compensation decision. The Court considered the explanation inadequate. Simply selecting an amount equivalent to a year’s earnings in the employee’s later job did not explain the treatment of the actual consequences of dismissal.

The relevant matters included the period without work, lower subsequent earnings, relocation to preserve the pilot’s career, lost benefits and the evidence of mitigation. The Court did not itself substitute a new figure. It remitted the compensation question to the Tribunal.

On 9 April 2025, the Tribunal revised the total to €165,270. The listed components included earnings loss, a period of differential earnings, relocation costs, lost insurance and licensing-related benefits, and a service-bonus element.

Significance for restructuring

The decision links the quality and timing of collective information to an employee’s practical ability to negotiate continued employment or better exit arrangements. Consultation is difficult to assess solely by counting meetings: the material needed to understand selection and test alternatives must be available while those discussions can still influence events.

It also demonstrates why redundancy exposure may extend beyond notice and an immediate period of unemployment. For specialised employees, relocation, continuity of professional work, benefits and reduced earnings may materially affect the evidence on loss. Those items require proof and individual assessment; the €165,270 award is not a tariff for collective-redundancy defects.

Related: Collective redundancy · Employees’ representative · Class of employment · Restructuring advice for employers