Air Malta expanded its workforce by 103 people in the months between March 2022 and January 2023, despite its well-known financial struggles, data tabled in Parliament shows.

The data, which was tabled by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana showed that between March 2022 and January 2023, Air Malta employed 139 new workers, while during that same period only 36 left the company.

Caruana was responding to a parliamentary question put forward by PN MP Mark Anthony Sammut who was asking for the number of new people who were employed and their locality, in each authority and entity that falls under Caruana’s Ministry, from March 2022 until today.

In his response, Caruana also added the number of workers who left the authority or entity in the same period.

Air Malta’s chairman David Curmi told the Times of Malta, last month, that a new national airline will be set up by the end of the year, but clarified that the transition to the new airline will be “seamless” for passengers.

That being said, shortly after Caruana said that the European Commission has not taken a definitive decision about the future of Air Malta yet and the discussions are ongoing, but he expects a decision to be taken by summer.

Discussions with the European Commissioner are ongoing after it rejected a request by the government to inject €300 million to save the national carrier.

The data tabled by Caruana also showed that Malta Med Air employed 43 new employees and 19 employees left during the same period.

Malta Med Air was established in January 2018 and carried out its first scheduled flight two years later in 2020. It has played a supporting role for Air Malta, but is a separate company to the national carrier.