Not Again! Air Malta Forced To Delay Flight After Pilots And Their Replacements Call In Sick
Photo: Air Malta
Passengers on a scheduled Air Malta flight to Moscow were left severely frustrated last night after the plane’s pilots and their on-call replacements reported sick, causing a 10 and a half hour delay.
“Air Malta flight KM560/1 from Malta to Moscow was yesterday evening delayed by 10 hours 30 minutes due to the fact that the planned operating crew for this flight reported sick,” the national airline said. “The next standby crew was called and the co-pilot reported sick after he was called in leaving the Airline with no option but to delay the flight and wait for a leased aircraft to be flown to Malta.”
To minimise disruptions the following day, Air Malta wet leased a plane to operate the Malta-London flight, which ended up getting delayed by almost three hours. The Malta-Hamburg flight also suffered a one-hour delay, while several other flights were delayed for between 20-40 minutes.
Air Malta estimated the cost of the flight disruption at over €85,000 and apologised for the inconvenience to passengers.
This is the second incident of sick pilots causing disruptions to Air Malta flights in the past three months. In September, Air Malta had to cancel a flight to Paris Orly once passengers were already checked in after “an unprecedented number of pilots” reported sick concurrently.
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