Passengers to be refunded for cancelled flights but reimbursement period extended

Wednesday, 6 May 2020, 17:12 Last update: about 6 years ago

Economy Minister Silvio Schembri has said that passengers are to receive a refund for their flights which were cancelled seven weeks ago due to the COVID-19 situation.

Schembri was asked by PN MP Hermann Schiavone about the situation of Air Malta, and whether the company is in a position to give refunds to all passengers whose flights were cancelled seven weeks ago.

The Minister explained that Air Malta has already issued two statements. "One of the explained that, on a European level there would be a change in the refund period, which was extended due to obvious reasons such as cash flow."

He added that, "all airlines around the world are currently going through a very difficult time, thus where before there was an obligation to give a refund to passengers within seven days, this obligation has now been extended to a number months."

The second statement that was released by Air Malta, Schembri said, explained that passengers have a number of options, including a refund, booking a new trip within a year, booking the same flight when they are ready to travel again and getting a travel voucher.

Covid-19 wage supplements

Schembri was also asked, by government MP Jean Claude Micallef, why a number of companies have not yet received the €800 wage supplement, and why the process taking so long.

Schembri said that, "every week, together with the CEO of Malta Enterprise, we are updating the measures that were announced - primarily in relation to quarantine, teleworking and the wage supplements."

He explained that, "as of last week, we had about 19,000 applications, covering some 88,000 workers. One must understand that each application means thousands of euro, thus we need to check the applications properly."

Schembri added that the process is a very rigorous as the applications and personal details of each and every employee must be verified.

The process takes time, Schembri said, adding that €25 million had been paid out by the end of last week.

An update on the situation will be given next week, but the system will become faster as the process of checking every applicant is coming to an end, Schembri said.