I refuse to join the instant comment jamboree to speculate and weave hypotheses about the reshuffle.

I am writing what I decided days ago what I want to write today.

What birthday, or anniversary, goes by without being noticed?

Reply: Air Malta’s 40th birthday tomorrow.

Forty years ago today, the ex-PIA planes arrived with much fanfare at the airport and the airline was launched the next day when it started flying.

This time, it was only a short, rather cold, news release from the normally verbose communications office that said the birthday will be celebrated later.

Then it sort of gave out what may have been the reason for this lapse: this is a time of change for the airline with the new CEO Louis Giordimaina taking over from Peter Davies.

Now that’s a reshuffle many are not talking about.

It is a pity the past 40 years are being allowed to sink unnoticed. They were years of a steep learning curve as Malta began its airline at a time of international crisis, with leased planes and so many other negative factors.

It is true the airline had practically a monopoly. Nevertheless it thrived, it grew, it learned.

Then came the years when instead of maturity and responsibility, the airline was subjected to experimentation. This was also a time when liberalisation introduced many competitors, especially low cost airlines.

Following the well-known debacles, such as Azzurra Air, RJ70s, etc, the airline stalled and almost crashed. It has been surviving, if that’s the proper word, on a diet of austerity, cost cutting and dangling on a very thin thread. Its survival is not assured and the glum looks of the crew and the general atmosphere seem to bear witness to the underlying tension. Even the press releases have ceased to be fun.

And yet, looking around, I see other, newer, airlines that are much younger than Air Malta and are going places.

Just to give an example: last week I attended the launch of Air Baltic, which is coming back to Malta for the second year running.

Air Baltic was founded in 1995 and since then it has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing airlines.

In 2012, Air Baltic carried three million passengers, with approximately half of the passengers travelling in transit via Riga. Its fleet consists of 25 aircraft, including brand new Bombardier Q400 NextGen planes.

Interestingly, the airline has three levels of Economy Class (Basic, Economy Smart and Economy Elite) and two levels of Business Class (Business Smart and Business Elite).

Among the extra services:

-      Save the flight price you have found on the website for 48 hours at a fee of €14.99

-      Purchase the option of changing your flight once, free of charge (if tickets within the same price level available) for €34.99 per one-way travel

-      Buy On-time arrival guarantee for €23.99 one way and receive compensation if your flight arrives at the destination one hour later than promised

-      Order your meal before the flight from an extensive pre-order menu including special dietary dishes. This way, you’ll save money and be served first on board

-      Reserve your preferred seat in the aircraft from €2.99 per flight segment

-      Book an extra seat next to you for more comfort from €50 per flight segment

-      Upgrade to Business Class and save up to 75% from the regular Business price.

-      Apply for the international Visa prepayment card and save €5.90 every time you book a flight on airBaltic.com as well as earn BalticMiles with every purchase. No bank account and credit check needed: you only spend the money you load onto the card.

-      There is a special luggage offer for sports or music items

That is just one airline. There’s more.

Today, at 1.20pm, Air Niki, the airline of Niki Lauda, will begin its flights to Malta. Then at 9pm British Airways will inaugurate its flights from Gatwick.

All around us new airlines are cropping up. Yet, there is still interest in flights by Air Malta but the airline is so short of planes today (it is wet-leasing two planes this weekend to carry out its flights because its planes are undergoing maintenance) that it cannot increase flights where there is demand for them.

Misrata in Libya has recently opened an international airport. Misrata is a safe area and has very close links to Malta due to the help extended when it was being savagely beaten.

There has been talk about a Malta-Misrata service but Mr Davies told the Libya Herald that “it is under review”. But with the airline having just 10 aircraft, it does not have the capacity to add Misrata to the network. If it were to happen, the magazine commented, somewhere else would have to be dropped.

Now one must remember that the airline, and also MIA, was set up to create a hub for which Malta, due to its geography, is very aptly suited. So far Air Malta’s attempt to become a hub resulted in the disastrous Azzurra Air venture and has been forgotten.

MIA these days seems more interested in boosting its landside revenue through shops and office blocks, although it has attracted and is attracting new airlines to Malta. But it’s one thing to increase flights bringing tourists to holiday in Malta and it’s a very different thing to set up a hub where people can get a plane to go somewhere else. This point was very cogently put in a recent article by our own Matthias Merzhäuser who pointed out, for instance, how the new Emirates flight could be marketed to bring people from Australia through Malta and onwards to Sicily.

It is only if, and when, Malta becomes a real hub that the airport, the country will really start to grow. As it is, it is still impossible to attract businessmen to come for a one-day conference and get back that same day. It is impossible to come to Malta from some destinations and not spend half a day going round Europe with multiple flights. Business travel thrives on direct connections and we have only a few direct connections to the power houses of Europe.

 As for the national airline, let’s draw a veil over the past 40 years as it would be too painful to go there once more. The massive, repeated political interference, the mediocrity and slipshod service (except by pilots and technicians who have been, and are, superb), the loading on to the airline’s bottom line of what used to be called the ‘indirects’ at the dockyard that ate into the airline’s vital bloodstream at a time when newer and bigger airlines were employing far less people per plane flying, shackled by far less union red tape and succeeding, wonder of wonders, in turning a profit and even offering cheaper flights than Air Malta.

All the cost-cutting of the past years have turned austerity into the second name of the airline. It shows this by the glum service, the tight smiles, and the complete absence of bounce. Had it been a shop, these shop assistants would have led to its closure.

Like many other people, I have been through such a situation and it’s hell, so I don’t blame them for worrying and letting the worry lines show on their faces. But to just prolong the agony is actually worse than offering false hope.

The airline, its people, need to recover the spirit of adventure that enabled the small new airline of 40 years ago to beat such great odds and thrive.

[email protected]