Air Malta is supporting the Challenge8000 team in its endeavour to be the first Maltese climbers to reach the top of the world, Mount Everest, in May 2010. The team consists of three climbers: Marco Cremona, Gregory Attard and Robert Gatt.

Air Malta is supporting this initiative and assisting the team with its travel requirements to enable the team members to train in preparation for their extreme mountaineering expedition in the Himalayas.

It has already helped the team with its travels to the UK, where the members successfully reached the summits of 39 peaks in the Lake District in just three days. During their visit to the UK, the members also ordered custom-made expedition clothing.

On 26 June, the Challenge8000 team left Malta for a 10-day training expedition in Chamonix in the French Alps where they met up with their Everest guide, Victor Saunders, who led them up various mountain peaks and trained them in such skills as rock-climbing, ascending, belaying, crevasse rescue, ice-climbing and traversing snow ridges with 500-metre falls on either side – all situations that the team will encounter in the Himalayas.

In September, the Challenge8000 Team will attempt to climb Cho Oyu – the sixth highest mountain in the world, at an altitude of 8,201m. This will be followed by an attempt to climb the 8,848-metre high Everest in May next year.

Air Malta’s assistance forms part of its “Committed to the Community” initiatives that are aimed at supporting and encouraging local organisations and activities in various sectors, be they cultural, social, philanthropic, humanitarian, medical, environmental, heritage or sport, that help the Maltese Community in some way or another.