Malta International Airport (MIA) and the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) have both welcomed the Prime Minister's pledge to remove Covid restrictions.

The Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) welcomed the statement made by Abela that, "its time to lift all Covid restrictions, leaving it up to people to choose how to safeguard their own well being."

MHRA President Tony Zahra said that this "is very much in line with what some of our competitor countries have already done and what we have already recommended Malta should do. Indeed, in the past two years the hospitality industry did what it was asked to do by the Health Authorities and thanks to collective efforts, Malta has managed to weather the Covid storm."

"Our vaccinations and boosters have prevented spreads of infection and it is evident that the vaccine programme has transformed our situation and therefore the rationale for continuing the covid protocols and related restrictions are now no longer there," he said.

 Zahra asserts that "MHRA members are now anxiously awaiting to see tourists returning and for Malta to start getting back to some normality. "We need to see the tourist areas across Malta and Gozo thriving again. To get there however we need to be competing on a level playing field with other tourism destinations and restrictions to access must be removed immediately. It's time to be ourselves again."

In a statement, Malta International Airport CEO Alan Borg said: "Our Traffic Development team and the Malta Tourism Authority have worked tirelessly to restore as much as possible of the airport's pre-pandemic connectivity, and our flight schedule for summer is testament to the success of these efforts. The connectivity we have secured augurs well for the coming months, and our confidence that this season will be significantly better than the past two summers has been further strengthened by the Prime Minister's recent pledge that the government will be removing the remaining Covid-19 restrictions. Only once people are able to travel freely to Malta again, can we start competing on a more level playing field with other Mediterranean destinations."  

MIA  unveiled its flight schedule for the summer season. Featuring 99 routes in 34 countries, the airport's flight schedule offers almost 80% of the connections the Maltese Islands had enjoyed in summer 2019.

 "Over the weekend, the airport welcomed the very first flight from Shannon, which will provide a direct link between Malta and Ireland's west coast until October. This flight will be operated twice a week by Ryanair along with the carrier's triweekly service to Dublin, which lies on the east coast of the island," the statement read.

 Another new summer development from the low-cost carrier is the Bordeaux service, which will be one of the nine routes connecting the Maltese Islands to France. France will be Malta International Airport's third most connected market this summer, following Italy, which will be served by 21 routes, and the United Kingdom, which will be connected by 12 routes, including Bristol which is a new development for the airline Jet2.

"Many partner airlines have already given Malta as a destination encouraging votes of confidence through the start of new services or the resumption of operations that had been interrupted by the outbreak of the pandemic, and the removal of travel restrictions would give consumer confidence a much-needed boost," the statement added.

In April the airline Transavia France is set to make a comeback with its Paris Orly service, after having cancelled its operations from Malta International Airport in March 2020. The month of April will also see Air Baltic reconnect the Maltese Islands with Latvia through a flight to the country's capital Riga, and Air Malta add a triweekly service to Madrid to its schedule. The Spanish airline Vueling will be operating flights to Bilbao, which hosts the sought-after Bilbao BBK Live festival, every Wednesday and Saturday between June and October.