The title of this letter is exactly the same as that published in The Malta Independent on Sunday some years ago. The author was an employee of Air Malta and had worked for another airline before joining Air Malta. Today he still thinks that “Air Malta will survive”, and that not much has changed.

Many people blame Air Malta’s present financial problems on high fuel prices, low cost airlines, and the disparity of the UK sterling. The high fuel prices are a reality – but these costs are paid by all the other airlines, therefore the same costs are paid by all competitors. The low cost airlines operating to Malta compete against each other, so again the costs are very equal and comparative. The disparity of the sterling is also a common factor – all the countries in the euro area accept this reality. If the UK is happy with its currency it is free to keep it.

Air Malta will survive because it knows the real problems that have brought it to this present state. In its first 20 years Air Malta made such a decent and consistent profit that from two old (scrapped-out) Boeing 720 aircraft leased (rented) cheaply from PIA, it eventually bought a number of brand new aircraft. Many people think that Air Malta had an absolute monopoly. How could Air Malta have had a monopoly if most of these people never travelled with it? These people always travelled out of Malta with British Airways, Alitalia, Libyan Airlines, Lufthansa (German), UTA (French) airlines, and others. Where was the monopoly?

A lot of people, including many business entrepreneurs, developed ‘selfish’ interests, apart from other things. Air Malta was perceived to be a cash cow, or the goose that laid the golden eggs. The truth is that Air Malta is neither of those, even though it has sacrificed itself to please too many people – political parties, unions, tourist orientated businesses, its own employees, and so on. For example − why was Air Malta expected to keep running highly loss-making flights? Was it to generate business, directly or indirectly, for other businesses that were already profitable by themselves? Was it to generate employment, sustainable or not? At what cost, apart from sacrificing itself? Also, very few people understand that when the airline offers lower air fares to passengers for night-flights, in reality the airline incurs nearly double the costs of a day-flight, because it pays all the employees involved two days’ pay. Air Malta has a limit – but its parasites do not. Its parasites cannot understand that Air Malta is made of people who are employed to earn a living – even though a number of them are parasites themselves. How can one run an airline with 1,300 employees when 500 are more than enough? The excuse is the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand. The truth is different and simple – get the head out of the sand to face reality no matter how hard it seems to be. This might take some time, and a lot of further damage, before it is understood and implemented.

The name Air Malta first appeared publicly in 1947. The Maltese owned private airline operated scheduled flights for about five years. The name then disappeared for 23 years; but it reappeared and has still been there, projected in over 50 airports for the last 36 years. No matter how hardheaded and stubborn Maltese people can be, and no matter how many more sacrifices have to be accepted − “Air Malta” will survive.

Reggie DeBono