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I read with interest Air Malta’s secret report against low cost airlines given prominence in one of the Sunday papers. To say the least, I am flummoxed by most of the reasons given in the report against low cost airlines.
For example, the report says that there will be a 50% increase in visitors in one year and that this will be a high risk strategy for a self-contained small destination like Malta. I would have thought that this is exactly what we wanted. Otherwise, why bother with having a Ministry and an Authority to increase our tourism if we have already reached saturation point?
The next reason given is that Air Malta will lose Lm23.6 million to low cost airlines! Who cares what Air Malta loses? It is what Malta gains that is the crux of the matter. Among these high risks that the report mentions is the need for hotels to organise more coach transfers as well as for government to increase public transport. It seems to me that the report is saying that hoteliers, tour operators and the ADT are morons and therefore cannot organise an increase in these services. Is this report for real? Or is it perhaps that PricewaterhouseCoopers and Air Malta are not capable of an organisation like that and they think that everybody else is in the same quandary as they are or purport to be? Another risk is that tourist venues like Malta Experience, prehistoric temples and other museums will have to absorb higher volumes of visitors. Again I would have thought that this is exactly what we needed!
The next ‘problem’ that the report mentions is the fact that the hotels will find it hard to implement new and larger systems to deal with individual bookings such as increasing the attractiveness of their websites and acquiring the right skills to maximize occupancy rates when catering for last minute business. Is this the faith that PWC and Air Malta have in our hoteliers? Had I been one of them, I would commence libel proceedings against this idiocy! The report even claims that with more Maltese choosing to travel more often and cheaply through low cost airlines, Gozo hotels will be hit in the winter because they are highly dependent on Maltese business during the season. I would have thought that out of these millions of tourists that would be coming to Malta, some would at lease trickle into Gozo. The report goes on to say that we will still be getting a decrease in the winter season and a lot of other baloney. I would think that the decrease in the winter months as compared to the summer months will be there but obviously incoming tourists in winter with low cost airlines will still be higher than what we are achieving today. Or am I wrong on this? I do not think so.
In my humble opinion, I would have thought that all the reasons given by PWC, obviously on the instigation of Air Malta, are actually all the reasons why we should hasten the introduction of low cost airlines and not the other way round.
If the MHRA does not create a hullabaloo about this misleading, to say the least, and dishonest report at worst, then they deserve what they are getting from the Ministry and Malta Tourism Authority but I am positive that the logic contained in this letter, even if I say to myself, there is no other alternative to save the economy of this country but to get low cost airlines yesterday.
Joe Aquilina
Bahar ic-Caghaq
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