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Kurt Sansone
The agreement reached between ministers on how to handle low cost airlines Friday confirms that the main obstacle for tourist operators clamouring for the opening up of the air travel market to low-cost airlines may not be Air Malta, but Malta International Airport’s dominant position in the market, which prevents it from discriminating between airlines on the basis of price.
Low-cost airlines such as Ryan Air and Easy Jet are known for the hard bargains they drive to extract massive discounts on landing charges from airports where they operate from but MIA Chief Executive Officer Peter Bolech says he is obliged to apply “fair, transparent and non-discriminatory charges.”
In an interview to appear in next Wednesday’s edition of The Malta Financial and Business Times, Bolech argues that if low-cost airlines are allowed to operate in Malta on the basis of slashed landing charges it would signify a radical change in aviation policy, which he argues may not be in the country’s best interest.
Bolech says the introduction of low-cost airlines may prompt the established carriers already operating from MIA to abandon key routes, in the process starving the island from important links to the rest of the world.
“We have a very established system of passengers coming to Malta. Let’s take for example Alitalia, Lufthansa and Air Malta. They all operate to Milan and Frankfurt, major connection points to the rest of the world. How could a Japanese and Canadian come to Malta if these routes didn’t exist?
“But if a low-cost carrier came and started an operation between Milan and Malta, others may be tempted to leave this route. We may get an increased volume of customers from the Milan catchment area but we will lose all connections with the rest of the world because low-cost carriers don’t have connections to the rest of the world.
“I believe, what Malta’s tourist product needs is wide access to all of the world and not only be dependent on tourism that originates from just two countries, Britain and Germany,” Bolech says.
The MIA CEO’s comments may not go down all too well with operators in the tourism sector, who this week reiterated their call for the introduction of low-cost carriers at a business breakfast dealing with tourism.
Addressing the breakfast, organised by The Malta Financial and Business Times, Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said discussions were ongoing with low-cost carriers to determine how best they could be integrated without disrupting already existing carriers operating to and from Malta.
Zammit Dimech then said Friday that Malta will have to give equal treatment to everyone, and “the existing handling charges will have to be paid.”
There seems to be consensus among the political class on the issue with shadow tourism spokesperson Evarist Bartolo insisting that it was high time that low-cost carriers started operating to Malta.
During the business breakfast veteran tourist operator Tony Zahra of Alpine Travel made an impassioned appeal for the country to embrace the changes characterising the travel market, which is increasingly relying on internet bookings and low-cost airlines. Critical of Air Malta’s apparent opposition to low-cost airlines, Zahra insisted the national airline had to change and re-invent itself to be able to compete in an ever changing market place.
Training his eye on another established carrier, British Airways, Zahra said Malta should not pamper these carriers too much because when it suited them BA had simply pulled out of the island with no concern to the economic impact it might have had on the island.
kurt@newsworksltd.com
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