Significant delays on some flights over the past days were due to an aircraft having to be withdrawn from service due to a technical issue, Air Malta said.

"Air Malta currently has one of its own aircraft in heavy maintenance through until mid-May 2023. Air Malta has planned to take delivery of two A320neo aircraft in early 2023. During this transition period of aircraft moving in and out of its fleet, it has been necessary to wet-lease two alternative aircraft to cover the scheduled flying. One of these wet-leased aircraft experienced a technical issue on the morning of Sunday 9th April, which resulted in it being withdrawn from service. Due to it being the peak Easter weekend, it was not possible to source a replacement aircraft from elsewhere, at such short timescales."

"This shortage of one aircraft in the flying program unfortunately resulted in significant delays to the Zurich service on Sunday 9 April and also the Rome and Brussels services on Monday 10 April as well as the London Gatwick service on Tuesday 11 April," the airline said. As an example of one of the delays, it was reported in the press that a flight from Brussels landed in Malta at 7.25am on Tuesday, having been due at 10.40pm on Monday.

The Air Malta 2023 Summer schedule has been designed to operate with eight aircraft units, all of which are fully crewed with the required number of pilots and cabin crew, the airline said.

"During Summer 2023 Air Malta will operate a very intense and expanded flying program of 155 weekly return direct services to 23 destinations. The withdrawal of an aircraft from the fleet for any period of time will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the flying program. At no point in time were the disruptions over Easter caused by either a shortage of pilots or cabin crew as reported in certain sections of the media. Air Malta has the correct flight deck and cabin crew complement to operate its entire Summer 2023 program."

"Air Malta would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to its customers during this very busy holiday period and is working hard to rectify the situation."