After all the commemorations we are having this year, here is one for next year.
On 15 February 2015, we should be celebrating a centenary of quite significant importance.
For on that day 100 years ago, the first flight took off from Malta. Significantly too, it did not take off from land, but from sea, from the Grand Harbour. Short Seaplane Type 135 took off.
We are not told where this plane came from or where it went.
That was the beginning of flying in Malta.
Shortly after this initial flight, the British authorities recognised the importance of planes for the defence of Malta and they started sending dismantled seaplanes to Malta for them to be assembled at the Malta Dockyard. In fact, not many would know this, a total of 23 seaplanes of the type Felixstowe F3 were assembled here.
Planes started to land on land-based runways by 1918 when a runway at today’s Marsa Sports Complex was used. Then by 1923 a new airport comprising runway and arrivals/departures facilities was inaugurated at Hal Far. As war approached, the RAF built and operated four airfields and an airstrip – San Niklaw, Qrendi; Hal Far; Ta’ Qali and Luqa and the Safi airstrip.
Few may know that to build the new airport at Luqa, the Air Ministry purchased six plots of land that belonged to the Church at a price of £2,495.
It was not an easy task: a valley and stone quarries were in the way and had to be levelled out. But by June 1939 the first plane landed. The two runways were extended and then extended again.
After the war, the Luqa airport reverted to civilian traffic with BOAC using Malta as a stopover from London to Cairo. Then BOAC stopped using Malta and switched to Castel Benito in Libya and then again to Rome. BEA then came in with one flight a week via Marseille. Some Maltese entrepreneurs saw an opportunity and three different Maltese airline companies were born – BAS Malta (Cassar & Cooper), Instone Airlines (Parnis England) and Malta Airways (Roger Strickland). Then by July 1947 the three had merged and the first Air Malta was born. It was short-lived and ceased operations in 1950 after which it was absorbed by Malta Airways and BEA.
By 1958 Malta got its first civil air terminal with its open air viewing gallery so that people could wave and shout to departing relatives or welcome them back. By the end of 1965 passenger movements had reached the 90,000 mark. Within two years they reached 198,000 and by the end of 1969 it had grown again to 258,000.
A Cabinet memo from 19 August 1967 reports a decision to extend the main runway and to build a terminal able to handle 1,200,000 passenger movements a year.
The new Labour government, elected in 1971, had other priorities: by March 1974 Air Malta had been set up. The plan for a new terminal was put on ice and the existing air terminal was extended but the runway did get extended from 1,500 metres to 3,544 metres. While the runway was being extended, Hal Far was again pressed into service as a substitute airstrip with passengers bussed to and from planes to the terminal.
Just as popular perception has it that the runway extension was done by the Labour government when it was the PN which decided upon it, so too popular perception has it that the new terminal was done by the new PN administration when in fact it was the PL administration which in 1985 invited proposals for a new terminal, which was later built by the PN administration. The works took 28 months and 16 days from start to finish.
The next big step in the airport’s history was its privatisation which in 2002 selected Vienna Airport together with two other minority shareholders to acquire 40% of the equity of MIA. In time, government sold another 20% and later yet another 20% of its holding so that it remained with just 20% of the equity.
The book, by Joseph R. Darmanin, is the offshoot of an exhibition held to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the terminal. It is a treasure trove of photos which show the various stages of the airport’s development and it also includes some hard to find items such as the contracts of sale of the land and reports of debates from the House of Commons.
Yet, unfortunately, it misses out on two important milestones in the airport’s history: the hijacking of the Egyptair plane and the subsequent bloodbath when Egyptian security forces forced their way in shooting indiscriminately.
And the real story and the background to the decisions which led to the privatisation and the choice of Flughafen Wien although Mr Darmanin, having been so near the deciding persons, may not be the person best suited to write this.