Air Malta has successfully settled 88% of all its Covid-related refund requests to date, the airline told The Malta Independent. 

In answering questions sent by this newsroom, an Air Malta spokesperson said: "The pandemic has created an ever-changing scenario where tourism markets are opening and closing depending on alert levels. Since March 2020, flight cancellations have become more common with demand fluctuating daily. During this period, Air Malta has cancelled up to 9,000 flights because of lower demand due to the pandemic." 

To date, Air Malta has already paid €32 million in refunds to individual customers and business partners from the 250,000 ticket refund requests.

Apart from the option of a full refund for cancelled flights, Air Malta had also introduced the chance to redeem their booked flights later with a travel voucher during the pandemic. Customers could redeem such options through the airline's official website or call centre.

Air Malta has received a total of 81,000 travel voucher requests valued at around €12 million.

In June, Malta had opened for tourism, where both unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people were allowed to enter the country. However, there was a surge of cases in July, which led the Deputy Prime Minister to announce that people would need to have a recognised vaccination certificate to enter the country without quarantine.

Last July, Air Malta had confirmed with The Malta Independent that it had received a total of 15,000 booking cancellations for travel during that same month. The airline's spokesperson had said at the time that despite the significant negative change experienced when these measures were announced; it had not had the same disastrous effect on bookings for travel during August. During the said month, only 3,000 seats were cancelled.

In July, Air Malta had also shown concern as it experienced an increase in passenger no shows.

"2021 has been a difficult year for the airline. The year was characterised by depressed and fluctuating market demand across all the airline's main markets, with varying degree," a spokesperson said earlier this month. He added that when comparing this year to 2020, the airline fared better with a 10% increase in passenger figures.