Watch: Air Malta’s Failure Is A ‘Self-Inflicted Injury Over Decades’, Malta Air CEO Warns
Malta Air’s CEO has denied that his airline’s success has harmed Air Malta, warning that the Maltese flag carrier’s financial crisis is a “self-inflicted injury over many decades”.
In a new interview with Lovin Malta, David O’Brien described the Ryanair-owned Malta Air as “Malta’s national airline”, noting it operates 66 summer routes to Malta, compared to Air Malta’s 16, with very little destination overlap.
“It’s entirely self-inflicted injury over many decades to be honest,” he said when questioned about Air Malta’s financial woes.
“When I joined the Ryanair Group, we had eight aircraft, approximately the same number of aircraft as Air Malta. Six months later, we had six which was not a great start, but now the entire group has about 530 aircraft.”
“A point we’ve made in Malta before is if you’re not growing as an airline, you’re in trouble, and Air Malta quite honesty can’t grow. If it focuses on nine or ten routes to key hubs, it should do okay, but beyond that there’s not much it can do and it doesn’t really compete with us.”
Expanding on his views, O’Brien said he sees Air Malta as an airline that services the “corporate and political elite” when they need to travel to major European hubs like London and Amsterdam, while Malta Air serves the general public.
Indeed, he confirmed Malta Air has absolutely no interest in taking over Air Malta’s routes – including to Frankfurt, Munich and London Heathrow – “because they’re too expensive and the vast majority of our customers don’t want expensive flights”.
O’Brien played down the implications of Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary’s recent comments that it will stop offering €10 flights due to soaring fuel costs.
“He said you won’t see €9.99 or €10.99 flights but extremely affordable flights will continue to exist, and look no further than us for them,” he said, adding that people are also attracted to Ryanair because it is the “most environmentally friendly airline in the world”.
Malta’s government is currently awaiting a decision by the European Commission on a request it made in 2021 to pump some €290 million in state aid into Air Malta.
Finance Minister Clyde Caruana last year announced that Air Malta would slash its workforce by half in an attempt to convince the EC that it was on a financially sustainable route.
However, in October he adopted a skeptical tone about Malta’s chances, warning that the EC doesn’t view the Maltese flag carrier as a “sacred cow”.
“We will not be getting any form of special treatment when countries and airlines far larger than ours did not,” he said.
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