In the first nine months of the operation of the new helicopter service from Malta to Gozo, 40 per cent of the flights were cancelled, said opposition leader Alfred Sant yesterday.

Dr Sant said this on a tour of Gozo, where he visited the Xewkija heliport, the Mgarr terminal, and the Xewkija Industrial Estate.

Of the cancelled flights, 90 per cent were called off because there were no passengers on board, he said, adding that the average number of passengers on board each flight was three.

In order to reach its target of 40,000 passengers for the first year, the helicopter service would have to carry 32,000 passengers between January and April.

This is not possible as in the first nine months in operation, the helicopter service carried only 8,000 passengers, he said.

Dr Sant said this was due to the high prices charged by the operator for the flights. He reiterated the Labour party commitment of subsidising the helicopter service within three months of being elected to government.

Speaking at Mgarr Terminal, Dr Sant reminded that on 1 August last year, Minister Censu Galea had promised that Phase A of the project was to be ready by this month.

Dr Sant asked whether Mr Galea would be stating whether Phase A of the project was going to be ready by the end of this month.

This phase would have consisted of an underground car park, the marshalling area, a ramp which would have joined the marshalling area with Ghajnsielem Road, the building of a substation and related works.

Dr Sant said the whole project should have been finished by mid-2003, more than two-and-a-half years ago.

However, today the government still cannot give an exact date of when the whole project is scheduled for completion.

Moreover, originally the whole project at Mgarr and Cirkewwa should have cost Lm8 million, but the latest estimate is that when the whole project will be finished, it would have cost Lm14.5 million.

Speaking at the Xewkija Industrial Estate, Dr Sant said that this was one of the oldest industrial estates in the country, but today it lies derelict.

Dr Sant said that in the last four years, the number of employees there decreased by 465 (55 per cent) – from 840 in January 2002 to 375 last January.

In November 2005, Minister Austin Gatt had declared that he was ready to bet money that in 10 years’ time there would not be any more textile factories in Malta, said Dr Sant.

He continued: “A month later it was Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono herself who said that no matter how much you work to bring foreign investment to Gozo, there will be few positive results.”

Dr Sant said that the Labour Party does not believe there is no future for manufacturing in Gozo.