There are only four weeks left during which the government must take a decision on the latest Ryanair offer to open up more routes at the start of the winter season.

Otherwise, as hoteliers and people involved in the tourism sector have warned the government, this coming winter will again be one of declining tourism figures.

Ryanair has asked to open up routes from Glasgow Prestwick, Bristol, Doncaster in the UK, from Madrid and from Bremen in north Germany, as well from an unspecified airport in Eastern Europe and from Venice and Trapani in Italy and Sicily.

Despite the fact that it is now clear that the arrival of the low cost airlines has given tourism in Malta a much-needed boost, tourism industry sources that have spoken to this newspaper said the top levels of government are still reluctant and hesitant. Hence the need for a blitz on public opinion, and on the government, in the coming days.

As the industry sources see things, it is only when a critical mass of low cost flights start coming to Malta that tourism will really take off.

This was also the experience that Gina Giani, marketing director at the Pisa airport, described to an economic forum held on Thursday at the Golden Sands Resort. In 1997, when they decided to take in Ryanair, the Pisa airport was serviced by four scheduled airlines and 67 per cent of its traffic was in the hands of Alitalia. For years, tourism figures had remained stagnant and the established airlines, especially the national one, exercised a stranglehold over the operations of the airport.

Since then, following the entry of Ryanair, flights have increased from 137 a week to 405, including New York for the first time. While the four scheduled airlines have all remained there, and actually increased their flights, they have been joined by no less than 11 low cost airlines. From two million passengers who passed through the airport in 2004, the figure went up to three million last year, and will further increase to 3.6 million this year. From business amounting to e50 million a year in 1997, the airport and the companies working around it now make e500 million a year. From an airport that was practically bankrupt in 1997, based on a national carrier that is now going up the spout, the airport has grown to be the seventh regional airport in Italy and a successful one at that, even though it had to accept a ‘Salva Alitalia’ tax lately to help out the national airline.

It is also important, Ms Giani added, to have a Ryanair base as this enables the low cost airline to switch routes around in case one does not work, and without a base this would not be possible.

And yet, industry sources told this newspaper, talks between Ryanair and the government have not even reached this level, the current perception being that the government just does not want to discuss this at present, nor in the immediate future.

Speaking at the same forum on Thursday, Bridget Dowling, Sales & Marketing Manager for Southern Europe at Ryanair, said Ryanair submitted its proposals to the government some time ago but has not had any response so far. Actually, she added, the response of the government of Malta was expected some weeks ago but seems to have been delayed. There are many airports around, she warned, that want Ryanair. Ryanair does not understand the reasons for this delay.

She also said Ryanair is not interested so far in increasing the volume it has at present from Luton, Dublin or Pisa but rather in developing routes to new destinations.

Philip Lingard, who was involved in the initial negotiations between Ryanair and the government, said he would have loved Ryanair to introduce an early morning flight from Luton as this would enable bankers to do a full day’s work in Malta and return to the UK on the same day. Malta is the only EU country that does not have this same day service to the UK, he said.

Mr Lingard compared Malta to Ibiza: two islands in the Mediterranean with roughly the same area. But Malta gets 2.5 million passengers while Ibiza gets 4.4 million. He also compared Malta to Dublin, which with its one million residents is far bigger than Malta. But then the flight connections it has are more than three times that of Malta: while Malta has 22 flights a day, Dublin has 270; while Malta has 2.5 million passengers, Dublin has 22 million.

He identified MIA as the main stumbling block to growth in tourism in Malta. MIA has a very unusual pricing strategy: Malta is the cheapest place to fly to with an empty plane: MIA probably gets more money from its car park than from an empty plane. Then it charges e24.40 per passenger: this is three times more expensive than other airports in the Mediterranean. According to World Economic Forum figures, while Malta averages in many areas it is by far one of the costliest to come here.

GRTU’s Vince Farrugia commented that had the low cost decision been taken a year ago today, we would have been enjoying a full year of tourism figures growth by now.

In her presentation, Ms Dowling said that the first three months of Ryanair operations to Malta, 130,000 bookings of the committed 200,000 in the first year of operations, have already been made. As for the claim made so many times that low cost flights would only help the Maltese to get cheaper flights than bring real tourists here, she said the February origination figures show 80 per cent of those who fly from Dublin are Irish, 85 per cent of those who fly from Luton are British and 69 per cent of those who fly from Pisa are Italian.