Malta's national airline, KM Malta Airlines, is yet to file a single set of accounts since its inception in 2023, and has dodged questions over when exactly these accounts will be filed.

KM Malta Airlines was conceived as a replacement for the perennially financially troubled Air Malta, with the company being opened in November 2023 and then starting to operate flights on 31 March 2024, a few months later.

Records at the Malta Business Registry show that the company has failed to file any audited accounts for any of the years that it has been operating in.

The airline did not respond to questions sent by The Malta Independent, despite several reminders over the course of two weeks.

This newspaper asked the airline on 11 June what the reason for the delay in filing its accounts was and whether the airline had a timeline on when it was intending on filing those accounts.

No answers were forthcoming, despite several reminders.

The airline is owned solely by the government, and Finance Minister had told Parliament that the airline had been granted an extension for the filing of the accounts.  However it appears that the airline has once again missed its deadline for filing these accounts.

The Nationalist Party expressed "serious concern" over the matter in a statement, stating that Caruana should back up his claims that the new airline is far more efficient and financially sustainable than its predecessor by publishing the accounts.

Momentum meanwhile questioned whether KM Malta Airlines is "illegally hiding its losses" and said that the Maltese people are entitled to know what financial situation their national airline is in.

KM Malta Airlines was set up on the basis of a business plan that the government agreed with the European Commission - a business plan which was never made public.

Without the accounts being filed in line with the company's legal obligations, there is no way of telling whether the airline is operating in line with that business plan.

The airline is currently operating a summer schedule featuring eight aircraft and 19 routes across Europe and the Mediterranean, which results in an average of 262 flights per week.