Reportedly, at the local press meeting Ryanair said it had recently started a route to some remote Norwegian town nobody has heard of and sold almost 600,000 seats (thus 300,000 returns) in just eight months due to low fares.

Ryanair flies to two places in Norway: Oslo and Haugesund. As one cannot assume that the “unknown remote town” is Oslo, it only leaves Haugesund, a town on the west coast. Ryanair operates one daily flight from Stansted, 900kms away (equals Malta-Ancona).

One hundred and eighty-nine seats (the capacity of Ryanair’s Boeing 737-800) times two for return times 365 for daily results in a maximum annual capacity of 137, 970 seats. So with 600,000 seats sold on the Haugesund route, this would mean that all seats are sold out for the next four years. Yet one can easily find seats at fares intended to fill under-loaded aircraft at proximate dates, and the bookable period ends well before four years.

The 300,000 return passengers are probably meant for Oslo, with flights from London-Stansted (1,000km), Prestwick (1,000km), Liverpool (1,000km), Hahn (1000km) and Milan-Bergamo (1,500km).

But then would one call Oslo, Norway’s capital, a remote town that almost nobody ever heard of? Or else one should stop marketing Torp airfield as Oslo. If Torp is the one with the 600,000 seats, call it Oslo for marketing, but an unknown remote town when it comes to impress Malta?

It was interesting to read in another English language daily that Ryanair could link Oslo and Malta (2,700km) with almost four hours flying time, which is not exactly in line with the ideal low-cost model.

It is interesting that Ryanair reportedly mentioned the possibility of linking Malta with Seville, which so far is only linked to London and Milan, and from/to where one so far sees no market for even intra-Spanish short-hauls, flights to/from many other places where one could draw on far greater potential than Malta.

One wonders why Ryanair never took up flights to Majorca for example, so near to Britain, Germany, France, and nearer to Milan than even Catania is, or all other noteworthy established Mediterranean island tourist airports, like Corfu, Rhodes, Heraklion, Ibiza, Larnaca, etc.

Could it not also be that many passengers travelling to and from places like Rzeszow, on the Polish/Ukrainian border, or Lithuanian Kaunas, not too far from both the Russian (Kaliningrad) and the Byelorussian border, and other places in the northeastern EU, are not all tourists but maybe many locals returning from all kinds of jobs? Hundreds of thousands of people from these areas work in the UK, Germany, or Spain in agriculture, in meat processing, as construction workers, as household helps, as handymen, or whatever, sometimes under very harsh conditions. A few weeks or months abroad can help them carry on for the rest of the year, with monthly incomes of ordinary people in these areas totally incomparable to Malta’s or the EU-15’s.

It was most astonishing reading about a Ryanair link Malta-Salzburg, where Ryanair flies to only from London. Ryanair recently warned the Austrian government that it could seriously rethink its position, which could have grave consequences for the country, if the government does not remove a E3,60 security fee increase, which has gone up to E7,99. Ryanair, in some way as a kind of warning, will cease all services to another Austrian airport from both Stansted and Hahn from the end of October, just as a three-year “embrace contract” expires.

In Cornwall, Ryanair announced it would proactively reduce flights on the Stansted-Newquay route, but have not set a concrete date yet, because of a future airport development tax of the enormous sum of Lm5 per return passenger. Ryanair says far less people would be interested in Cornwall with this Lm5 rise on a vacation, but will vote with their feet and go elsewhere (irrespective of the higher fare due to distance of course).

Are destinations uniform products?

But are destinations really uniform products? Are airport costs the only costs of a trip? Should European governments and airports finally give in to any of Ryanair’s demands?

If an airport is allegedly so costly to run, does the cost difference towards competitors not remain? If one would save just 15 euros on the same ticket, would one spend hundreds of euros more? Has one nothing left to attract tourists but E15 less on a passenger service charge?

MIA proved its position regarding landing fees. If an airport/region signalises that it treats all carriers equally, without one being more equal than the rest, then other new airlines can be attracted and the established ones might also stay and plan to expand from this base without being discriminated against after investing in a new route. MIA at least signalises stability, continuity, diversity, and fairness.

If one wants rebates for low-cost carriers, then how would one legally define borders on what is low-cost and what is not? This should prove a most entertaining exercise.

As regards volume rebates, what about thresholds and near misses? One can transfer this down to any threshold one likes. MIA explained the legal situation.

But imagine a low-cost airline getting such a discount, saying that it would pay, for example, only 10 per cent and if it does not meet thresholds at the end of the contract period guarantee to pay the rest, which it would no doubt do, but then maybe pack up. All other airlines could decide for themselves that they wanted to pay what the others do, for maybe a year or also three, promising the same, and demanding to be treated equally. Why should they and their passengers cross-subsidize those who try and put them out of business or deprive them of quality airport diversity?

And with special discounts only for new airlines or increasing presence, one problem will be how should one treat seasonal traffic; or if one supports new but basically parallel traffic, which puts existing services at a disadvantage; or what if an airline drops a route for some time and then takes it up again? If money is provided, then only for really new geographical markets, and for anyone, or what?

Still, if one prefers low-cost air transport operators to others, could one transfer this system to low-cost operators in general? One might have special lower tax rates for new low-cost supermarkets, new low-cost restaurants, low-cost accommodation, low-cost service staff, and so on. Local consumers would be happy, and the tourist product would be cheaper, so tourists would have more money to spend, or return more often.

If this would affect local jobs or incomes of existing enterprises, is not Air Malta also a local employer and have not Air Malta and its many employees been some of the country’s biggest taxpayers (through corporate and income taxes) over 30 years?

Sometimes there seems to be the perception that all Air Malta’s revenue and payments flow elsewhere, not to Malta. But it is registered and pays taxes in Malta, not elsewhere, with its major base with almost 2,000 own employees here, not elsewhere, and it starts making money for Malta right when passengers board the aircraft abroad, not just when the plane touches down in Malta. In proportion to population, the airline business has far greater direct employment significance here than it does in Spain for example

The 2000 jobs

A positive effect would be however that if tourists would stop staying for six days, and come three times for two days instead, which would be no problem with give-away tickets and why stay longer then, one could boost arrivals statistics. While all remains the same for nights spent, taxis whizzing to and from the airport, and others involved in the transport chain between aircraft door and hotel room would have more work

Ryanair said it might indirectly create up to 2000 jobs around the airport.

If it would pay, say, only 10 per cent at first, then, to maintain revenue, this would mean that for just one flight another airline paying 100 per cent goes under because of this one, the airport requires 10 new flights just to compensate the aviation-side revenue, while costs go up. Even improved non-aviation profits might probably not cover such a stark difference. Better not imagine what happens if all airlines would do so.

Air Malta, currently doing a great job of economic turn-around without redundancies and a very positive fleet and schedule arrangement, could in the worse case scenario feel forced to abandon this socially responsible course. Where is then the net gain with jobs around the airport? Will new jobs be of the same quality, or low-qualification service jobs?

Where is the gain in purposely damaging Air Malta by giving only others (which at least Ryanair is maybe not even asking for, but seems OK for some) an advantage over them and additionally risking replacing roughly 0.75 million Air Malta tourists staying longer, plus those several hundred thousands brought in by the many other airlines, by maybe even a larger number of ultra-low fare arrivals who are however boomingly advertised as short period trippers, flying in for just a day or a one night stay? One should not forget possible implications on network quality on the passenger side and cargo capacities.

Getting oneself into a seemingly cosy dependency with only one single enterprise, which can pack up as soon as it does not get what it wants, (contrasting to a private airport, a static object, or also Air Malta as national carrier of, incidentally, an island on the periphery of the EU), which one cannot deny it, might not be everybody’s choice.

Is, given long-term energy price challenges, working towards re-focusing tourism on “hen night trips” or “pub/club crawls”, or “candlelight dinner flights” some propagate, over at best 2000+kms one-way away purchased only because it is extremely cheap (remember, according to one airline even a few euros make the crucial difference) and tax-free, nothing else, the real way forward?

The problem is not lacking air transport capacities. This summer there were tourists who would have been able to fly to Malta but found all interesting accommodation sold. The problem is not too few hotels in general but having more nights spent during off-peak seasons to fill a (temporary under-occupied) already existing airline and hotel capacities, both which are not really variable. Can adding more capacity help? Maybe one must make Malta more attractive during off-peak seasons through third measures. Diversifying source markets to spread risks of regional economic slowdowns can help too.

If a system which claims of its own accord that it cannot operate in Malta without financial accommodation regarding first landing fees then, after proved otherwise, other issues, is to be installed, then maybe better only to places so far really underserved, and not just to an airport a mere 200 or 250 kilometres away from a connected one, or parallel traffic via do-it-yourself-transit hubs. Over three decades Air Malta developed basically all routes it has now and all R&D costs had to be absorbed by the airline without question.

Is it really just fares?

Being half-Maltese myself, I have always taken a natural interest in Malta fares. In the early 1990s, the “peak arrivals” years, an average tourist flight-only ticket from Germany cost circa 600DM, about 300 euros. At 1.75 per cent growth over 15 years this would mean about 390 euros. Today such tickets cost 200-220 euros including all taxes, and if one chooses some Air Malta or Condor offers, even around 150EUR return (all from Cologne/Bonn and Düsseldorf), and this for a 1800km one-way distance, thus 3600kms in total.

Fares thus eroded a lot relatively to incomes.

Theoretically, arrivals should have almost doubled. In practice arrivals remained stable, since before low cost carriers operated on a broad scale, or were even not founded yet, thus not because other places got them and Malta did not.

Malta is much further away from Britain or Germany than almost all low-cost airline destinations are from these countries. But some still compare promotional air fares over 500-800kms to regular fares of standard category on an Air Malta or other airline’s 1800km or even longer flight. Air Malta’s average passenger distance is 1700km. What about e.g. Ryanair’s?

But look at the point-to-point distances between core markets like Britain-Eire (Stansted-Cork 500km, Liverpool-Dublin 200km), Britain-France (Stansted-Beauvais 300km; Stansted-Nantes 500km; Stansted-Montpellier 1000km), or Germany-Northern Italy (Hahn-Bergamo 500km; Hahn-Pisa 700km) or UK to northern or eastern Spain (Stansted-Girona 1100km), compared to Malta-Stansted 2100km, Malta-Manchester 2400km, Malta-Düsseldorf 1800km etc.

Low-cost flights are a great opportunity for short hauls, like Ryanair’s heartland between the UK and Eire or France, as city shuttles, or within a range of up to two hours or 1200-1300km, and for regions, which so far had no real tourist air link let alone local airline industry. But all this is primarily not the case in Malta.

Could there not be more growth in other countries because they were formerly not so accessible or interesting, while Malta is quite an established destination? In Malta destination and country are one. Other countries have dozens of destinations, many of which have recently been developed for tourism by air, therefore there is potential for growth.

Eastern Europe has low wages and prices. One should absolutely not go down to this level, but one also cannot, in some few but unfortunately not too few cases, maintain a make-the-quick-buck attitude. These few black sheep give tourists a bad impression while the majority of market participants are honest but have to pay the price.

Why strafe Robbie Borg’s entrepreneurial dedication to Malta by installing parallel flights supported with advantages his small Britishjet cannot get?

Then there is the local environmental and shabbiness issue. Dealing with this will benefit everyone.

And the louder one calls that tourism is failing so terribly, could not existing tour operators or airlines rethink their position? Could it not be that by focusing only on one low-cost airline one keeps away other new airlines, even other low-cost airlines, or even existing carriers wanting to expand, as they might postpone decisions to see whether a cutthroat competitor will get the way specially paved only for him?

Does visiting Malta really depend on E15 more or less of passenger service charges?

Maybe all that Malta needs is just giving itself a good overhaul, not throwing all positive points of ‘Old Malta’ overboard, with a clean environment, orderly urban surroundings, functioning infrastructure, etc. This benefits both tourists and locals (travellers and non-travellers) more than E15 more or less.

The allegations against MIA should finally be solved since it was made known that landing a full B737 costs a mere E220.

A certain low-cost airline has communicated with action in other places that cost rises of a few euros are assumed to have totally devastating effects on their operations. With other low-cost/fare carriers, this was not the case in the same airport.

Anybody is legally totally free to operate. No carriers, also Maltese, should however be purposely disadvantaged.

Somebody else will always be cheaper, and somewhere else will always be cheaper to reach. Malta must differentiate itself, offering something unique and authentic. And it can have damn positive points, also without trying to be the cheapest.