It is true that the so-called "low cost" airlines have managed to create an enormous tourism market which provided millions of people with the opportunity to travel, since the cost of going abroad once and twice a year became affordable for a family. The business model followed by these companies ensured that this happened without any adverse impact on travel security while still allowing them to make hefty profits.
The model also gave them a strongly dominant position on travel markets. They're now abusing it. Among other measures, by changing the way fees are charged on travel options they offer, like - for luggage that can be taken to the cabin - for preference boarding - for checking in... Changes being introduced are noted in the conditions appended to the purchase document of tickets... which practically nobody reads. And if you haven't read them, you'll be asked to pay again just prior to departure.
In the European Parliament, these sharp practices and others like them have been highlighted. They sometimes get further mention. But they're still being practised. That's what always happens when a given economic, social or cultural group achieves dominance in its sector.
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"TROUBLE" IN PARLIAMENT
The reactions to the "trouble" that arose in the Malta Parliament recently during the budget debates were rather comic. Compared to the scenes staged in the past by Labour and Nationalist Oppositions over the years, what happened this time was quite tame. Not least because what sparked it all was rather overdone (I remember occasions when the head of a PN government well exceeded the time set for him to continue speaking...) Both then and now, I doubt whether the extra time that was "stolen" brought with it any political gain. Probably the opposite happened...
Even so, I think the Parliament does gain when some theatrical show develops between the government and the opposition. Citizens have come to regard the institution as a whole with quite a deeply felt indifference. Few follow its debates. Which is not a good thing for many MPs are doing a very good job. If (within limits!) political tempests arising in Paliament serve to stimulate citizens' interest in its work, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
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CLIMATE WARMING
Across the country, there still prevails an insufficient awareness of the threat that climate warming poses to the Maltese people as of now... and for the future. We do consider the issue as an important one, true, but a rather distant one for it should affect others mostly. We are not so concerned when other nations try to retard reforms that are necessary to control the warming, as if this could affect negatively only faraway places... like Thailand, Vietnam and the Dominican Republic... We make no connection between these islands we live in, and the fires and floods that have been happening in a big way across nearby regions of the Mediterranean.
However, we cannot keep considering the issue of climate warming as if it were an academic topic, in so far as Malta is concerned. We need to take it into account as an issue that could eventually impact destructively on wide stretches of the islands... possibly all their territory... to the extent that it could make them uninhabitable.