Letters • December 07 2003

Low costs flights and hypocrisy

Robby Borg
Bargain Holidays
Qawra
Together with the Prime Minister who was awarded the European of the Year, Mr O'Reilly of Ryan Air was also given the award as he started the low cost flights.
In parliament the Prime Minister also praised Mr O'Reilly for his courage, as he gave the small people the opportunity to travel at low cost. The irony is that I also started low cost flights with Sabre Airways in the year 2000.
When I started the airline I had spokes in the wheel from the airport handling and at least on three occasions I had to ask the British High Commissioner to intervene as the airline was British.
Also the hypocrisy is that two years ago I wanted to start a low cost airline in Malta, but the application was refused. Then four months ago I told the media that I will go to the UK. I have been aggressively harassed in the operation of the hotels that I operate.
I bring over 80,000 tourists to Malta per year and over 3,000 jobs depend on this, and I spend over 1 million pounds a year on advertising Malta in the UK, and yet I was told by a person in high authority to cut the number of seats to Malta by half.
Then two weeks ago Air Malta said it is going to start low cost flights to the UK. More hypocrisy came to light a few weeks ago when I was accused of carrying low quality tourists by an anonymous tourism expert, but what this expert should know is that everybody has travelled with us, including the Prime Minister and his wife, magistrates, lawyers and people from all walks of life. However, most people that benefit from the lower prices are students that study in the UK and people with low earnings. My loyalty is not to this so-called expert and his collaborators, but to my customers, both Maltese and British and to my staff, most of whom do a excellent job as they give me the best reward.
Malta will become a full member of the EU on May 1st 2004. My company has already taken action with the Director General of Competition in this regard.