Air Malta’s Final Flight Will Be On 30th March 2024 As New, Downsized National Airline Announced
The “new” airline which will replace Air Malta has officially been announced… and it’s bringing with it a number of changes.
Revealed today, the new airline will operate 17 routes instead of 37 and use eight planes instead of 10, but this time round, it’s all about the company actually registering a profit.
Three of the airline’s Airbus 320NEOs aircrafts will be brand new, bought directly from Airbus and owned by the new company.
“An airline must make profit,” Finance and Employment Minister Clyde Caruana said during today’s announcement. “This airline will be everything the airline hasn’t been the last few years.”
In fact, today’s announcement comes after “20 years of losses” for Air Malta, accumulating losses of €356 million by the end of 2023’s first quarter. As the accumulated losses increased, in fact, Air Malta remained in a Negative Equity position of some €121 million… despite a capital injection of €130 million between 2012 and 2015 and the raising of €209 million in internal funding between 2005 and 2020.
Total employees within the company, meanwhile, went from just under 1,400 in 2010 to less than 400 this year.
“An Air Malta flight would lose money as soon as it hit the air, and lose another €4,000 by the time it landed,” Caruana continued. “Now, each flight will bring over €2,000 in profit.”
As part of the revamped structure within the new airline, a series of cost cutting (also down to a smaller workforce) will see the airline’s wage costs go from a spend of €48 million to less than half of that, €22 million.
With Brussels turning down the Maltese government’s request for a €290-million State aid injection into the struggling Air Malta, the islands instead opted for a model which was used by neighbouring Italy, who recently replaced Alitalia with ITA. In fact, the European Commission gave Malta three years to run this… after which time a business partner needs to be allowed in so that it’s not state-funded.
Everything from aircraft maintenance to direct flying costs will be reduced, with a substantial change in the airline’s business model aimed at registering that long-sought-after profit margin.
Designing “the most commercially efficient network”, the new airline has also increased frequencies to existing routes like Rome, Munich, Paris (CDG), Zurich and Vienna… but other routes are now not on the roster.
Palermo, Naples, Nice, Geneva, Lisbon and Tel Aviv are the six routes which have been cancelled.
The remaining routes are now Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Catania, Dusseldorf, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, Lyon, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris CDG, Paris Orly, Prague, Rome, Vienna and Zurich.
With a workforce of 375 employees, the airline’s new €350 million investment (and €90 million for staff and pilots) also includes the acquisition of the London Heathrow and Gatwick slots from Med-Air.
By the third year of operations (2026/7), Copenhagen will also be added as a route.
The slew of updates to Malta's new national airline were announced this afternoon by Prime Minister Robert Abela and Finance Minister Clyde Caruana
So what’s the endgame for Air Malta looking like?
Air Malta’s final flight will be on 30th March 2024, with the new airline’s first flights leaving the following day.
As of November 2023, Air Malta customers can apply for refund of tickets post 30th March 2024, with a recruitment process of the new airline kicking off in December.
On 1st December 2023, the new airline will start receiving bookings.
Meanwhile, Caruana has pledged that the airline’s “name will not die”, with a company being able to tender for the Air Malta brand, a name which belongs to IP Holdings (a company owned by the government).
View this post on Instagram
As for Air Malta’s current pilots, these will have four years to decide if they want to leave and not be a part of the new airline… but if they do, they won’t be able to ever join again.
As part of a clause in their contracts, the pilots will be given these four years to decide if they want a sum payment as part of their departure. If they do choose this, they won’t be able to work as pilots with the new airline, or Med-Air, ever again. A six-year “ban” from working within the public sector will also apply.
This, Caruana said, was being done to not repeat “the same mistakes we made in the past” when new contracts were signed back in 2007/8.
“The moment they receive the sum payment is the moment they leave,” Caruana reiterated. “We will know how many pilots accept this and the exact number later this year”.
What do you make of these announcements?
READ NEXT: Watch: 'When Will Action Be Taken?' Gozo Shadow Minister Urges For More Resources For Police
