I must admit I was very slow to finally relent and make use of the new low-cost airlines, not out of some jingoistic resistance to the idea of “abandoning” the national airline but more due to doubts regarding passenger safety, knee-and-elbow space and the limited luggage allowance. However, no one in his right mind would be willing to pay more than necessary to reach the same destination, and for too many years Air Malta has been shooting itself in the foot with excessively high fares for even the nearest places, a mere 20-minute flight away from us in Sicily, as the crow flies.

In the end I had to hold my hands up and accept defeat. My first low-cost flight, on board a Ryanair aircraft, did immediately invoke a feeling of unease. To find yourself with a bunch of people holding disproportionate pieces of paper, obviously printed at home, that went for both tickets and boarding cards was quite a shock for someone who used to collect the old, professionally-produced glitzy airline tickets of the past. Air Malta, of course soon realised the benefits of such practicalities and did likewise.

There were no technical hitches, well, none that the captain would have bothered to tell us about, and my safety fears were soon put to bed. The rest of the flight, however, was like a visit to an amusement fair of the “Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite” type.

The crew members did not exactly treat us to a velvet service, though in contrast one must admit that in such a small place as Malta, on the national airline it was always easy to find you knew one or two of the hostesses or the purser on duty. Low-cost airlines have to deal more robustly with hand luggage than anything or anyone else, as people on such flights tend to cram so much stuff into that sole piece of luggage that it becomes hideously deformed. And, as we know only too well, Maltese passengers enjoy going to markets and department stores.

To watch the cabin crew grappling with bags in the shape of sleeping elephants and stoned bulls in the hope of forcing them into the overhead lockers is a veritable spectacle, especially if they have nice legs.

Then, of course, you are not entitled to any food or drink unless you pay for it. Were we all spoilt when we travelled comfortably and there was no private business warlord seeking bigger profit margins every year, or should we just say ‘those were the days’?

OK, one can do without food or drink for a couple of hours, but then those poor girls who have just had their intestines stretched to the limit, are now pushing trolleys to serve those who cannot. They are followed by more trolleys from which to sell you alcohol, toiletries, make-up and other items popular with travellers in search of gifts for loved ones.

By the time you have reached your destination, you have also been asked to buy lottery scratch cards that win you great prizes and, wait for it, nicotine-free cigarettes! If, like me, you are unable to sleep during a journey, all this amounts to very good social observation, better known as silent entertainment.

The major airlines of the world, at least those that had been cosily enjoying the lush convenience of national coffers, eventually had to play ball. They understood that passengers are not mummies and, slow or fast in their realisation, they know how to react to a bargain. Now those same airlines have either already become, or are in the process of becoming, a poor imitation of the low-cost pioneers.

The latest we’ve heard about Air Malta, for example, is that as from this November, passengers will not be getting any more “free” food unless they are travelling club class or have booked a meal with their tickets – not even if the stewardess serving your section of the aircraft happens to live next door to you back in the village, or if you went to prep school with her papa.

This means that rather than competing with the rest of them simply by offering reduced rates and better deals, our national airline continues to eat into itself. Having bitten off so many of its human resources, buried most of its possible-revenue-making subsidiaries and hopelessly downgraded its services, it could soon find there is nothing left to dig into, except bare bone and shrivelled skin.

But the piece de resistance goes to the idea of launching bingo during Air Malta flights. According to reports, passengers are going to be urged to buy €1 tickets, but the takings will not go exclusively to them, for the airline will also be sharing the takings with the winners. If this is not humiliating the national airline, I do not know what it is.

I’d thought the new carnivalesque livery was enough humiliation, but the bingo tickets turn it into a public blood-letting manifestation of which the Mayas and the Aztecs would have been proud.

I know most Maltese women, and some men, enjoy their bingo/tombola inside parish halls and other venues, in aid of their football clubs, band clubs and political clubs, especially during coffee mornings with their favourite parish priest or politician, but for airline passengers to have to go through all that is asking too much.

Will the captain switch to autopilot and join in the fun of reading out the numbers, I wonder? Imagine passengers trying to sleep or to concentrate on some urgent document they need to complete before landing, being disturbed with the humdrum of the draw and sporadic shouts of “fatta!” or its English equivalent: “bingo!”.

It is all reminiscent of the one and only package tour my wife and I ever booked through a local agent some years back. We went to Hungary and, of course, most of the people around us all of the time were compatriots. No problem there. The really trying moments came when we were travelling from one Magyar place to another.

I am not exactly one for sing-alongs on the coach, and I will not condemn those who enjoy them, but how many renditions of Lanca gejja u ohra sejra can one stomach in a given morning?

Then, if it was not people loudly discussing petty Maltese politics, it was the same old spinster with a central-island accent insisting we all recited the Holy Rosary. Again, I have nothing against one reciting the Holy Rosary if he or she wishes, but to have it recited on each and every coach ride like some congregation on wheels during a holiday, as distinguished from a religious pilgrimage, is tantamount to driving one homicidal.

But where was I with Air Malta? Or should one ask, where will Air Malta be in a few years’ time? Offering Black Jack, poker and roulette games on board, and please pay to use the toilet?